Martin O'Neill owes Celtic NOTHING. His legacy is secure and beyond question. For his own good, he should do the smart thing and walk away from it all

Shortly after a 3-0 hammering against Rangers in the Premier Sports Cup just over a week ago, Martin O’Neill stated that it should have been a wake-up call for his Celtic players.

Why they needed a wake-up call against their bitter rivals, and so soon after the Champions League debacle against LASK, was another matter. But the message from O’Neill was clear.

Yet, rather than springing to life and awakening from their slumber, the response from his players was to hit the snooze button.

The 3-1 defeat to Ferencvaros in the Europa League, followed by the 1-0 loss to Rangers at Parkhead on Sunday, put the tin lid on one of the most damaging weeks of O’Neill’s near 40-year management career.

In the aftermath, O’Neill claimed that there hadn’t been much between the two teams on the day. It was denial, deflection, maybe even delusion.

O’Neill went on to say that he will spend the next few days assessing his future and whether he can still help this team, or whether it might be time to ‘wrap it up’.

He also mentioned the title win against Hearts on the final day of last season and how it will forever be one of the great days of his long and illustrious career.

And he was right on that one. That should have been his Hollywood finale. When he then lifted the Scottish Cup the following week, it was the perfect moment to sail off into the sunset after saving Celtic’s season.

The fact that he chose to stay on as manager can now be seen for what it was – a mistake. A manager so in love with the club and its supporters that he couldn’t walk away after getting the bug for it again.

And a board of directors so utterly clueless in their efforts to find a suitable long-term replacement that they were more than happy to have O’Neill, at the grand old age of 74, sign on the dotted line.

Yet, in the end, there comes a moment when even the true greats of management need to accept when a situation has gone past the point of salvation.

A moment when a dignified and graceful exit is best for all concerned. For O’Neill, that time has surely now come after the events of the last week.

O’Neill owes Celtic nothing. His legacy is secure and beyond question. He did exactly what was asked of him when he returned to the club last season. This is not a mess of his making.

After a spell in hospital recently where he underwent a small medical procedure, he also doesn’t need the hassle and pressure of all of this.

On Sunday, the line about being 110 years old was delivered with a typically dry wit, but the underlying message was clear.

Age plays a part. Every setback invites the same conversation. And this time, for once, the conversation should end with O’Neill putting himself first.

Look at the wreckage he inherited. Brendan Rodgers left. Wilfried Nancy’s 33-day experiment collapsed in six defeats from eight matches. The squad that trailed Hearts for most of last season was never even remotely close to being the finished article.

Transfer windows at Celtic have long been an exercise in late, anxious scrambling rather than strategic clarity.

O’Neill did not create the chronic conditions that leave the champions looking hopelessly short when the big games arrive. He simply walked into the middle of them twice last season, steadied the ship, and somehow delivered a league title and a Scottish Cup.

As is always the case with these things, hindsight is 20-20. When Celtic were 4-0 up on aggregate against LASK, O’Neill’s decision to stay on as manager didn’t look like such a mistake.

But the 3-0 scoreline from that first leg in Glasgow flattered Celtic. LASK had plenty of chances on the night. Given Celtic’s defensive frailties, it was clear the tie was far from over.

The subsequent capitulation in Austria was spectacular – and set the tone for much of what has followed over these past few weeks. It left mental scars on the players.

In their five biggest matches of the season – two against LASK, two against Rangers, and one against Ferencvaros – Celtic have lost by an aggregate scoreline of 12-5.

Neither O’Neill nor his coaching staff have the answers to this. Celtic have no identity or style of play whatsoever.

Their game plan this season amounted to little more than spending a few quid on the likes of Kasper Hogh and Camilo Duran – and presuming they will beat everyone else in Scotland purely because they have better players.

The fact that Hogh, a club-record signing at £11million, never even made the starting XI on Sunday reflected more on the failure of the coaching staff to get the best out of him.

The service to him has, by and large, been non-existent and he looks a shadow of the player who excelled in the Champions League for Bodo/Glimt.

The decline in Callum McGregor’s form is also emblematic of Celtic’s malaise, and the switch to a 3-5-2 formation was one last act of desperation from O’Neill on Sunday. Plainly, it didn’t work.

The foundation of Celtic’s domestic dominance over the past decade has been built on a 4-3-3. That was the system favoured by Rodgers and Ange Postecoglou.

One with which, at their best, Celtic played with a pace and purpose that no other team in Scotland could match.

Right now, they are a million miles from that. O’Neill’s team on Sunday – with three centre-backs and no wingers – was Celtic’s most defensive line-up in an Old Firm derby for many a long year.

As noted in these pages only a week ago, the flip-flopping between Viljami Sinisalo and Sam Johnstone was a bizarre business. Celtic effectively replaced a back-up goalkeeper with another back-up goalkeeper, only to then go back to the original back-up goalkeeper.

Listen, managing a club like Celtic is not a gentle pursuit at any age. The intensity, the expectation, the pressure and the scrutiny of every decision – it drains younger men.

The criticism after three insipid losses in a week is predictable and, to an extent, understandable. Fans are entitled to ask hard questions when performances dip so alarmingly.

But a man who holds truly iconic status among supporters, second only to Jock Stein in the club’s all-time great managers, does not deserve to become the scapegoat for structural shortcomings that long predate him.

The board, the recruitment, the failure to refresh a squad that was already in need of strengthening – those are not O’Neill’s shortcomings.

Asking a 74-year-old, aided by two coaches of questionable pedigree in Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham, to paper over these cracks indefinitely is unfair on O’Neill and ultimately unwise for the club.

There is also the simple matter of perspective. O’Neill has nothing left to prove at Celtic. His trophy cabinet is full. He has immortal status among the support.

So what would Celtic do next if he did leave? The club would face the same question it has faced too often in recent years: find another stop-gap or finally commit to a longer-term vision.

Maloney is already on the staff and has stepped into the dugout before. An internal solution buys time, although it would not appease supporters.

External names would surface. Robbie Keane’s name was heavily linked in the summer, only for fan uproar to effectively kibosh the whole thing due to his previous links in Israel.

Keane’s namesake, Roy, was in the stand on Sunday afternoon. As is always the case with these things, speculation spreads like wildfire.

O’Neill has always been a fighter. That is why he answered the call last season and why he signed on again in June. But fighters also know when the rounds have taken their toll.

The Hollywood ending was already written on that May afternoon against Hearts. Everything since has been a needless and ill-judged encore.

For his own good, for the sake of his health and his family, O’Neill should walk away from all of this.

It would not be a case of quitting or running away from a battle. With the club in a crisis that he did not create, it’s simply the smart thing to do. Quite simply, he owes it to himself.