If Keevins believes that Martin O’Neill will be the next Celtic manager, maybe there’s hope for us after all…

Old Shug is back in the prediction business, and this time his target is Martin O’Neill. So that’s MON out the door then, surely?

Well, well, well…

Hugh “Nostradamus” Keevins is at it again.

And this time around, Old Shug reckons today is the day that Martin O’Neill will be confirmed as the next permanent manager of Celtic.

On the face of it, that sounds like good news.

For those of us who still remember the difference between hope and panic, the idea of Martin staying on for another season is a comforting one.

But there’s just one tiny problem with Shug being the one to tip it.

Hugh Keevins doesn’t get predictions right.

Ever.

Not once.

Not ever.

They say a stopped clock is right twice a day, but as we’ve established more than once on Read Celtic, Shug cannot even manage that.

His “zero per cent” article now sits in the same dusty drawer as his infamous A N G E piece.

Both of them will follow him around for the rest of his journalistic career.

So when Old Shug now starts thinly veiling a prediction that Martin O’Neill will be the next permanent Celtic manager, you’d be forgiven for assuming the exact opposite.

If Shug says MON, then surely MON walks…

Right??

Do you not think??

That’s the kind of comfort Shug usually provides.

But every now and again, even a broken clock gets close to the time.

So maybe – just maybe – this is the one he finally gets right.

Wouldn’t that be just the most Shug thing of all??

Tipping the right answer for the wrong reasons, on the same day he gets it announced.

To be fair to Shug, his latest piece actually contains something approaching a coherent point.

Here is what he had to say:

If O’Neill is to be beguiled into hanging around he’ll need to know that he’s shopping in Waitrose, as opposed to Asda, and his recommendations for players are followed through without question.

Hard cash, not soft soap.

Astonishingly, I actually agree with him.

I know, I know…

Because we all know what happens at Celtic when a manager dares to ask for the right player rather than the cheapest one.

Brendan Rodgers asked.

Brendan Rodgers got Kairat Almaty, from Kazakhstan, in his Champions League away day calendar.

A club statement, unsigned, was duly released apologising for “transfer window shortcomings”.

Apparently nobody fancied putting their name to that one.

Of course they didn’t.

Then came the puppet master golfer’s hand-picked saviour from October.

Martin O’Neill brought us back from the precipice and won a Double fit for posterity.

He’s now apparently being asked to do it all over again.

On the Asda budget.

Give me a f*****g break.

Owen Coyle, of all people, has weighed in too.

He thinks Dermot has “the right solution staring him in the face”.

He calls Martin “the original safe pair of hands”.

Keevins even points out that, if MON had been left in place from October instead of being parked on an “interim” basis, it would be a Treble we’re celebrating right now and not just the Double.

Fair points, all of them.

But here’s the thing.

Owen Coyle stepping forward to back MON to stay tells you exactly what is wrong with this club.

Make no mistake – even if Martin O’Neill is announced today as our next permanent manager, this still does not address our long-term issues.

Not one of them.

The squad in 2026 is a pale imitation of the one that went to Munich in February 2025.

We’ve already had a £25 million bid in for Arne Engels.

Lazio are sniffing.

Daizen Maeda is being linked away in every other window of every other newspaper.

And the people who let it all rot in the first place?

They’re still in the building.

Silent Mike is still polishing his world class coffee machine.

The absent golfing meddler is still in Barbados, “consulting” via fax machine.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…

Sorry, what was that?

Oh right – the sound of another season’s recruitment plan booting up.

Let me get this straight.

Martin O’Neill is being asked to stay on.

At 74 years of age.

To paper over the cracks of a board that has spent the last three years insulting the intelligence of its own supporters.

Because no one else has been called.

No one else has been planned for?

Because nobody – and I mean nobody – at Celtic Park does anything until the absolute last second of the absolute last minute.

That’s not a managerial succession plan.

That’s a panic button.

A panic button being pressed under the polite cover of “continuity”.

Granted, I want MON to stay too.

Of course I do.

We all do.

He’s earned every minute of whatever extension Dermot eventually offers him, and then some.

But let’s be honest here – this isn’t a plan.

This is the same Celtic board doing the same Celtic thing they’ve been doing for years.

Wait until the deadline.

Then wait until the fans are at boiling point.

Wait until the only option left is the one they should have committed to weeks ago.

And then dress it up as “strategy”.

Bollocks.

So if Hugh Keevins is indeed right for once in his miserable predictive life, and Martin O’Neill is announced today, I’ll happily raise a glass.

To Martin.

Not to the board.

Never to the board.

Because the moment Martin lifts his next trophy, the Stenography Corps will already be hammering out the same tired shite they always do – Celtic muddled through, got lucky, weren’t really that good, call it “tainted” while you’re at it.

And then in 12 months’ time we’ll be having this exact same conversation about who comes next.

Because nothing changes at this club.

Nothing.

All talk, and no action.

It was ever thus.

And always will be as long as these charlatans are in charge.

Choose Read Celtic as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.