Quotes
‘When I took over at Celtic, Dermot Desmond asked me to take ownership of the club and that was music to my ears.’ Martin O’Neill on Celtic, Seville, Clough and the changing face of management
“You can’t afford to rely on history – you have to make it.”
Martin O’Neill
“It’s an absolute honour for me to be the manager here, an absolute honour.”
Martin O’Neill, July 2000
“I will do everything I possibly can to bring some success to this football club.”
Martin O’Neill, July 2000
“The changes at Ibrox don’t affect our job one jot, certainly nothing that happens over there will influence what I do.”
Martin O’Neill, 2001
“The UEFA Cup is not just one notch up from what we’re used to, we are talking about four or five notches.”
MON, 2003
‘When the final whistle blows and you’re in front; thats the only moment you really enjoy it.’
MON on games v Rangers
“Football is about those who play and those who pay.”
Martin O’Neill (2003)
“I don’t earn as much as you think, you know. Funnily enough, I earned more at Leicester.”
Martin O’Neill (2003)
“If you tell me we will win the league and not beat Rangers all season, then I would take it.”
Celtic boss Martin O’Neill
“One of my jobs at the start – and you can write this as a headline – was trying to find out why exactly we had spent some of our money on Rafael Sheidt.”
Martin O’Neill speaking in 2004
“I’d dearly love to have played lead guitar with Jethro Tull. That would have done me.”
Martin O’Neill, 2004
“Neil Lennon, for whatever reasons, suffers dogs abuse at every single away ground and in particular here obviously. He is well thought of by the Celtic fans for what he has done for us over the last four-and-a-half years. It was to show that Neil Lennon is very popular with our fans and I didn’t want anyone to forget that.”
Martin O’Neil supporting Neil Lennon after the torrent of racial abuse he had to suffer after a game v Rangers (Nov 04)
‘What sort of state do I leave Celtic in? Certainly a better state than I found them, and certainly a better state than you’re in.’
Martin O’Neill on Clyde commentator Peter Martin
“I know that, two miles south of Carlisle, nobody has ever heard of them.”
Martin O’Neill on Scottish journalists (2005)
“I am leaving Celtic purely for personal reasons and I am extremely sorry to be departing in such circumstances.”
Martin O’Neill
“During the five years we [Celtic] played everyone to be perfectly honest – and many a time we played referees an’ all.”
Martin O’Neill
“I will calm down when I retire or die”
Martin O’Neill
“What is special is the atmosphere created by the 60,000 people who gather here every second weekend. It’s almost like a shrine.”
Martin O’Neill
“Normal pundits, absolutely, but ex-professionals having a go? Especially sometimes – and I’m not talking about here, I’m talking about in other parts of the United Kingdom – you have players who have done absolutely nothing in their career, nothing at all, who have been basement dwellers as footballers and ended up on a screen criticising something in front of them that they’ve never experienced either as a player or a manager. And they’re giving an opinion – their opinion is worthless. I’m not saying that every opinion up here from an ex-pro is worthless, far from it, but sometimes you have to disregard these things.”
Martin O’Neill on ex-players turned Pundits (Dec 2020)
“I’ve honestly missed it so much. Seriously. My wife, who hated every place she’d been to in her life, absolutely loved it in Scotland. If she ever goes to heaven – which she won’t – she’d complain about that as well…But she loved it here and I was the same. It was great. You’d wake up and look out the window and not know if it was June or October. But that didn’t matter to us coming from Northern Ireland.”
Martin O’ Neill (2022)
“Celtic is a way of life. Possibly more than anywhere else, it meant everything to the supporters. The club affected their lives in ways perhaps maybe other clubs didn’t do.”
Martin O’Neill (2023)
“I don’t think I’ll ever calm down. I’m afraid that’s me. Honestly, I’ll just take one massive big ‘woof’ and I shall be gone. Heart – gone!”
Martin O’Neill from his first stint at Celtic
“I got a call yesterday, late afternoon or early evening, from Dermot Desmond, asking would I step in because Brendan had resigned from the football club. It was shock news as much as anything else, it shocked me too. He asked me to step into the breach on a short-term deal for them until a manager is appointed. Like everything else, I took a gasp of breath, and thought ‘is this real? Or surreal?’ It’s difficult to turn down the man who gave me the job in the first place 25 years ago. By the time I’d pulled myself off the floor, I thought then maybe I should do it.”
Martin O’Neill (Oct 2025)
“It’s nice to see Shaun. It keeps me young. I took him to Aston Villa and he claimed he was homesick and went back to Celtic. I’ve never really forgiven him for that. This is the first time we’ve really met up so I’ve got a lot to say to him now when this finishes and it won’t be positive!”
Martin O’Neill joking on Maloney joining him in the interim roles (Oct 2025)
“I would say Martin, I didn’t know him personally,” said Trusty. “But to come in and see his charisma. I didn’t realise how funny he actually is. “Just to see that. The knowledge. The whole coaching staff has, it’s been really good, and I think we have all really reacted to it in a really positive way, and that’s the results we have seen. As soon as they came in, they just filled us all with full of confidence. That’s what we needed. I think we have reacted well to the messages and how they come into the team.”
Trusty on Martin O’Neill (Nov 2025)
“If I’m leaving, I’m saying to the new manager ‘You’re inheriting the greatest squad that ever lived!’, but if I’m staying I’ll be saying ‘We’ve got a lot of work to do!'”
Martin O’Neill (Nov 2025)
“He has enhanced his standing as one of the all-time club greats.”
Chris Sutton (Nov 2025)
“I’ve been saying farewell to the players since I arrived! … Half the team wouldn’t have known who I was!”
Martin O’Neill (Nov 2025)
Kheredine Idessane BBC: “From my experience, you have always been a quite unflappable character and quite calm. Does that go on, given the sort of uncertainty?“You wonder how many games you might have. Whether this (Hibernian) is going to be your last one. It turns out it’s not.”
O’Neill: “I can’t believe you could say that, because I am not unflappable. I am exactly the opposite of that. I get myself concerned about football. I have always done the same thing.“Even when I had, at my disposal, some phenomenal players. I was still in the same sort of state.”
(Dec 2025)
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Quotes by others on MoN
“The most fascinating, engaging and infuriating manager I have ever dealt with.”
Graham Spiers (journalist, 2011)
‘Martin did have one thing going for him when he arrived up there in Glasgow – he didn’t need to work too hard to get fans to come to the ground. All he had to do was tell them it was a Saturday! What a luxury, massive home crowds virtually guaranteed.’
Brian Clough on MON, 2002
“If he’d been English or Swedish, he’d have walked the England job.”
Brian Clough on Martin O’Neill.
“Anybody who can do anything in Leicester but make a jumper has got to be a genius.”
Brian Clough on Martin O’Neill.
“I told Martin I thought he was making a wrong move [going to Celtic].”
Leicester chairman John Elso
“Martin O’Neill has reduced the number of nutters at Celtic because he has given them less to be nuts about.”
Brian Clough (2002)
“If Martin learnt anything from me, it was to get the best out of what you had to work with.”
Brian Clough, speaking in 1997
“Everyone, but everyone, had predicted our demise, but at that point Martin showed his mettle. In the dressing room before the match he gave us an unforgettable talk. I personally do not think we needed much motivation as we were all sure of ourselves and positive that we would compete and get a result. Yet Martin’s words inspired us to even greater heights of determination. He looked around the dressing room and pointed out young Shaun Maloney. ‘This is a European quarter-final and this boy is only nineteen, but he might never get this opportunity again.’ He looked around the older guys and added: ‘You guys in your thirties probably won’t get the opportunity again to prove a point, to prove to England and Europe that you deserve respect, and that you are worthy of respect, and that you are worthy of a place in the semi-finals.’ He made his points tellingly in his usual manner and did so in two or three minutes, yet by the time he had finished we were ready to go out and run through brick walls if we needed to.”
From an extract from Neil Lennon’s autobiography, (Lennon, Neil (2006) Neil Lennon: Man and Bhoy. HarperSport, ISBN-10: 0007233477) which describes gaffer Martin O’Neill’s famously inspirational speech at Anfield prior to the game.
“I’ve never met O’Neill, but was once told an illuminating story about him. He was sitting before some assembled press, one of whom raised the point that O’Neill never worked with his players in training during the week. Don’t you think, the journalist continued, that you could go one step further and improve the players’ technical skills if you were to work with them more?
“Do you know what, that has never occurred to me,” O’Neill replied. “It’s such a great idea I am going to start that next week. The only problem is I’ve been so busy winning matches I haven’t had time to do it!” O’Neill was making the point that managers are judged by the matches they win and not necessarily for the team’s style. He is a clever man but even he could not have anticipated the success achieved during his short time in charge. ”
Tony Cascarino, 2007
“Martin wasn’t a training ground manager, he was more of a psychologist, but he was very good at getting the best out of his players. At half-time, the things he would say to you, would turn things around in your head. He was always positive with you, never negative, and that was brilliant to hear in the dressing-room.”
Jackie McNamara (Jr) (2011)
“Martin had clear ideas. He would tell me: ‘Lubo, I do not want to see you come back and take the ball from the centre-backs and play the easy pass. I want you near the penalty box to make passes and score goals. This is your job for the team.’” He added: “Martin was clear with me: ‘If you do that, I kick you up the bum’.”
Lubo on manager Martin O’Neill (2010)
“Martin [O’Neill] doesn’t do small talk because all he talks about is football – non-stop.”
Peter Ridsdale (former Chairman of various clubs in England inc Leed Utd), (2005)
“He was clear about what he wanted. He took the players he needed from the previous era – the ones with character, fire and quality – and built his own team. He brought in Alan Thompson, Chris Sutton, Neil Lennon, Bobo Balde, Joos Valgaeren – huge players for us. Martin knew how to build a team of warriors. We didn’t fear anyone; we played Barcelona, Lyon and Liverpool, and we weren’t scared. Teams feared us when they came to Celtic Park. We had such togetherness and we had winners, and we were hungry for success.”
Petrov on Martin O’Neill (Mar 2023)