Martin O’Neill – An analog manager in a digital world, Celtic’s coach is in danger of being left behind in the modern game

Last night in Lisbon, I watched Martin O’Neill for ninety minutes, and I’m not sure he knew what was happening to him.

Let me say this up front, because I know how it will be read.

I’m not here to dance on anybody’s grave.

O’Neill has done more for this club than most of the people who’ve sat in that dugout, and nobody can take Seville away from him.

But maybe, just maybe, he’s too old for this game.

He’s 74 years of age.

And at times on that touchline, he looks completely bewildered by what’s going on around him.

I’ve been circling this one for a while.

A month ago, after the tactical disaster-class at Celtic Park, I wrote that everybody was scratching their heads, including Martin O’Neill himself.

Three weeks ago, I said that comparing him to Sleepy Joe Biden was crossing a line.

But even then, I described a 74 year old manager who is floundering, and I put that down to the board.

Last night made me wonder whether I let him off too lightly.

Benfica scored inside four minutes and the man in the dugout looked like he’d been handed a map in a foreign language

Dane Murray upended Jhon Duran for a penalty before most of us had found our seats.

That should have been the moment the manager took charge, shouted, pointed, reorganised something.

Instead we got a team that looked as lost as he did.

Sebastian Tounekti let Alexander Bah run straight past him for the second.

Viljami Sinisalo was beaten far too easily for the third.

Three goals down, and still nothing coming from the technical area but a man staring out at the pitch like it was happening to somebody else.

Now, I’m sure he’ll tell you he saw it all coming.

Managers always do.

But when you watch the way other benches operate, the constant gesturing, the instructions relayed, the changes made in minutes rather than at the interval, you can see the game has moved on.

The modern manager runs a huge machine, and O’Neill looks like a man who’d prefer a quiet word in the dressing room and hope for the best.

Here is what he said afterwards, as reported by the BBC

“Last thing you want to do is concede so early on. We could’ve capitulated, but I thought the second-half performance was terrific. We created chance after chance.”

“The second-half performance gives me the determination… I think we can still qualify. We can still do it.”

Terrific.

We lost 4-1.

We sit 34th out of 36 teams after two games, and the manager is telling the nation his side came roaring back.

Callum McGregor was a lot closer to the truth when he said the unforced errors had left us with a mountain to climb.

Yes, we were better after the break.

When you’re three goals down against a side that has stopped caring, you tend to be.

Then there’s the matter of Chris Sutton, who branded his old club “flat-track bullies”.

I don’t always have much time for Sutton.

Four defeats in our last five, and you can’t argue with that.

Every time the stakes have gone up this season, we’ve come up short.

You don’t fix a team that keeps beating itself by telling everybody how positive you feel

Kasper Hogh was hooked at half-time.

He’s now failed to score in 10 of his first 11 games since arriving from Bodo/Glimt, and he’s the most expensive player this club has ever signed.

Scott Allan said it plainly afterwards: if he’s a creative midfielder with Camilo Duran and Hogh to pick from, he’s taking Duran every day of the week.

I think most of the support would have said the same thing a month ago.

So why did it take until half-time in Lisbon to act on it?

And why, when asked about his Colombian forward, does O’Neill talk about “trying to fit him in” as if it were a jigsaw puzzle?

Cameron Carter-Vickers was missing, and once again the back four was picked apart by Gianluca Prestianni and Duran.

We’ve known for months that the depth in that area is paper thin, and the manager hasn’t had a solution.

Neither, for that matter, have the board.

But a younger man with fresh ideas might at least have found a way to cover the problem rather than describe it.

Maybe he’ll prove me wrong, but I can’t see it happening

Like I said, I’d love to be wrong.

O’Neill walked back through the door for a second spell and the support greeted him like a returning hero, and who could blame us?

I’m just not sure that the game he left is the game he came back to.

And I’m not sure he is either.

He talks about determination.

He talks about a real battle for places.

Where does Tounekti fit in to that particular battle? Because he’s certainly not battling to keep his place after last night’s showing.

What O’Neill doesn’t talk about is a plan.

Forty-five minutes of Celtic fighting back isn’t a plan, it’s a reaction.

It’s the football equivalent of a man who locks the door after the burglars have left.

If that’s all we have for the rest of a Europa League campaign that is already hanging by a thread, then the knockout stages are a fantasy.

So here’s the question nobody at the club will ask out loud.

How many more nights like last night can we take before somebody finally admits the modern game has passed him by?

Your guess is as good as mine…

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