Jackie McNamara believes Celtic should do everything possible to retain Martin O’Neill as manager after the 74 year-old guided the Hoops to a Premiership and Scottish Cup double.
The former Celtic defender worked under O’Neill during the Irishman’s first spell in charge at the Hoops, winning six domestic honours across a hugely successful five-year period.
Having witnessed O’Neill’s methods first-hand both on the training ground and inside the dressing room, McNamara feels the 74-year-old has once again demonstrated his value to the club after steering Celtic through a turbulent campaign.
Speaking to the BBC ahead of the Refugee World Cup, McNamara said: “If he wants to stay another year I’d be delighted with that.
“Even if he wanted to go upstairs in some capacity, on the board or in recruitment or whatever. He’s shown how important he is.
“There was a lot of noise between the fans and the board and I think that noise has stopped the last few months because the focus was back on the team and on winning.”
O’Neill operated under the constraints of being interim manager throughout much of the season, limiting the club’s long-term planning in the transfer market.
McNamara believes that would need to change if the experienced manager remains in charge beyond the summer.
“Anybody coming in would be looking for that,” McNamara added.
“Martin knows what he needs moving forward to try and get into the Champions League. The recruitment side needs to be sorted with a sporting director coming in or head of recruitment or whatever title they’ll use.”
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1 Comment
Believe that MoN staying on as manager, would split opinions within our supporters imo?
Personally believe that MoN has a massive role to play over the summer period, but best suited if he isn’t within the managerial hot seat imo?
Don’t believe anyone could have galvanised our club together, better than MoN did last season. Still believe that it will need to remain in place over this summer period also.
Would struggle to find anyone, who holds as much respect as MoN has within our club currently. And would be a massive mistake if that isn’t utilised properly, and gets whatever job title, DD should be offering him imo?
Problems that were in existence last season, haven’t totally gone away either, especially within our recruitment process.
As that is going to be massively tested during the summer, then believe MoN has a massive role, to play in hopefully getting things to run smoother imo?
Nothing is guaranteed of course, but MoN does possess a skill set in order to potentially help to make things run better, despite the amount of challenges involved within the rebuilding of our squad imo?