Anyone who has taken even a cursory interest in the career of Martin O'Neill will know that he is not exactly from the Trappist monk school of football management. When it comes to letting people know what he wants or thinks, O'Neill is never backward in coming forwards. But just two games into his new vocation as the latest man to try out the Messiah's chair for size at Celtic football club, he has already made a much greater and a much more rapid impact than many expected. O'Neill has not just made his mark at his new club. He has waded in and stamped his authority all over it.
After the lingering depression that surrounded the great John Barnes debacle and threatened to engulf the entire club, O'Neill has been very much the new broom sweeping away all the gloom and doom. The transformation in the club's attitude from a world-weary resignation to an ebullient cando type of atmosphere has been important.
But it would have been wholly irrelevant had it not been matched by the only two statistics that matter within the confines of the goldfish bowl that is the Scottish Premier League. Firstly Celtic have won their first two matches of the season. Neither of the victories were particularly impressive and both displays were punctuated by examples of the same old defensive uncertainty that has made them so vulnerable in recent years. But in stark contrast to the attractive yet ultimately shapeless approach of John Barnes, there are early indications that the team that will be cast in O'Neill's image will play with much more structure and discipline.
Rather like an American basketball coach, the new manager likes to think in terms of zones and players who can fulfil roles within each of the areas he designates all over the field. This was the approach that served him so well when he worked with the limited resources at Leicester City. That is why O'Neill is unlikely to make speculative moves for players just because they happen to be available. He seems clearly determined to bide his time and wait for the man who will slot neatly into the next available peg.
O'Neill will also have been encouraged by the form of the players he has identified as the potential fulcrums of his side. The new Belgian centre half, Joos Valgaaren, has been competent if not outstanding. It was also vital that his new striking partner, Chris Sutton, scored early and so avoided the drip-drip of building pressure that handicapped him at Chelsea as the search for goals became increasingly more frantic.
The second feature of the early days of the new regime is, if anything, even more pertinent. So far Celtic have kept pace with Rangers and have not yet lost early ground. Such a concern may well be all the indictment of the current state of Scottish football that you may require but that takes nothing away from its importance to the general health of Celtic football club and the extended tenure of its new manager.
On the limited evidence available, then, it is a case of so far so good on the playing front. At first glance, the off-field situation appears equally benign. O'Neill's openness has been embraced by a Scottish media which had grown hardened and cynical after a prolonged diet of Celtic paranoia. The new man has clearly identified a public relations contest that has to be fought in tandem with the more serious business on the football field and he has made it his business to hit the ground running.
This, of course, is the honeymoon period and O'Neill is basking contentedly in the afterglow. But there could still be a price to pay for his footballing version of Glasnost. Amidst all the inevitable transfer speculation that hovered over Celtic Park since his appointment, O'Neill has never been shy about meeting queries surrounding proposed moves head on. The hacks, of course, have lapped this up but there have been signs that the manager's frankness has been less than beneficial when it has come to closing deals.
THE transfer of Valgaaren was protracted after O'Neill made his interest clear and all the parties involved dug their heels in. Equally, he made no secret of his intention to sign Mark Bosnich from Manchester United. To read the remarks attributed to O'Neill last week it would have been easy to think that the move was all but secured. That it should subsequently break down over the goalkeeper's wage demands is damaging to the club. It makes Celtic's bottom line when it comes to salaries public knowledge and could significantly compromise the club's bargaining position in the future.
The protracted saga surrounding Northern Ireland international, Neil Lennon, and his proposed move from Leicester City has been similarly ungratifying. He chose to make news of his offer to Leicester public before any concrete agreement had been reached and the move has remained in limbo for over a fortnight.
Thus far, O'Neill has been on the receiving end of remarkably little media criticism for his megaphone diplomacy. If the players he publicly targets duly arrive then much of this will be swiftly forgotten. But as the first Old Firm game looms at the end of this month, it is not that difficult to picture the storm clouds starting to gather should things not go Celtic's way. That encounter represents O'Neill's first stern test and would provide the opportunity for a radical reassessment of everything that has gone before.
That, though, is for the future. So far Martin O'Neill has comfortably kept his head above the choppy waters in which he now operates. There have been no half measures and he has done everything with an intensity which is true to his Derry roots. One image endures. When Sutton scored the winner 10 days ago against Dundee United towards the end of O'Neill's first game in charge the television cameras cut to the manager. He was out of the dugout jumping up and down like an excited schoolboy. Some things will never change.
