Martin O’Neill has opened up on the club’s failed negotiations for both Kelechi Iheanacho and Marcelo Saracchi…
Celtic manager Martin O Neill Celtic v Middlesbrough, Pre Season Friendly, Football, Celtic Park, Glasgow – 18 July 2026. Photo Phil Oldham. IMAGO/Shutterstock
The hapless Celtic chief executive’s delaying and dithering has cost the club dearly once again, despite what others say to the contrary on the matter.
It is now well into the second half July and still Celtic have, aside from the Camilo Duran signing, made no tangible progress in relation to transfers for yet another window.
The club’s hierarchy are out of touch and out of date, with the men charged with handling recruitment into the club completely out of their depth now. It’s plain for all who are willing to open their eyes at this point.
O’Neill specifically asked for those two players to return and now he has been shafted big time from above. Despite the nonsense about the Iheanacho wage request, it is Celtic’s own fault for allowing the deadline on the extension to expire, without tying the experienced marksman down.
More fool them.
A general view of swathes of empty seats as fans boycott the club ownership Celtic v Middlesbrough, Pre Season. A general view of swathes of empty seats as fans boycott the club ownership Celtic v Middlesbrough, Pre Season. 18 July 2026 Celtic Park. Photo Phil Oldham IMAGO Shutterstock
The manager has now said his piece regarding the abomination behind the scenes at Celtic Park and has astonishingly tried to defend the Board for their usual failings
Speaking after the 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough, the Irishman said via the club’s official YouTube channel: “There are always two sides to every transfer. He’s gone, I thought we had a deal with him at the time but that wasn’t the case and so he’s gone to pastures new.”
Continuing his unbelievably naive defence of the club’s current custodians, the 74-year-old O’Neill said: “The option ran out, that’s fine. But the option would be to take someone on similar terms to before, so that’s where the difference was. It would have been nice to have him for pre-season. He’s chosen to go elsewhere.”
Businessman, Dermot Desmond, looks across the second hole on day two of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship 2025 at Carnoustie Golf Links on October 03, 2025 in Carnoustie, Scotland. (Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
Following in this vein when it comes to the club’s consistent failures in the transfer market, the Celtic boss went on to paint the Saracchi situation in the same light. “Again, there are two sides to every story,”O’Neill said. “It’s happened, players have gone. I think he’s done really well at the club and there were circumstances which seemingly meant it was never going to happen,” the Celtic manager added.
Martin really needs to wake up to what is going on around about him.
The club is steamrolling its way into a disaster campaign once more from the off. The Celtic Board tried to lowball his backroom staff, whom he stated played a major role in his two interim spells last season. Now they have failed to tie down two of the managers main targets in what should have been an open goal assignment for Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay.
Remember that on Saturday 4th July Michael Nicholson told supporters in Cork at the AICSC AGM that he was initially concentrating on the free agent signings describing these as ‘EASY’.
Having secured one of three by signing up Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, it makes you wonder how he’ll get on when he gets round to dealing wth the harder stuff when transfer fees and agents representing the best interests of their clients are involved and lowballing is seldom if ever likely to reach a successful conclusion.
Maybe that’s actually their desired outcome, spend nothing and deliver only excuses via the increasingly flustered 74 year-old.
Enough is enough. The club is in crisis. Martin O’Neill needs to stop defending these charlatans…
Watch Martin O’Neill’s post match media conference after the 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough at an almost empty Celtic Park yesterday afternoon…
Paul Gillespie
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