Truth stranger than fiction as O'Neill leads Celtic from hostility to happiness

Figure caption, Celtic lift Premiership trophy after dramatic final day BBC Scotland's chief sports writerPublished17 minutes agoOn a grim Sunday at Tannadice in March, Celtic lost 2-0 to Jim Goodwin's Dundee United, a defeat that put them five points behind Hearts, and two behind Rangers. Martin O'Neill, a strange amalgam of dejection and defiance, didn't mince his words about how wounding the defeat was, but he was strong on all hope not being lost. Celtic, he said, would have to win seven out of seven on the run-in. "We disappointed an awful lot of people today," he remarked. "It's been difficult since I've set foot in the place. This is a blow but we're not finished yet." The truth was that O'Neill and Celtic were only getting started. He asked for seven wins on the bounce and, up until Saturday's endgame in Glasgow, he had six. Tense, nervous, only occasionally impressive and frequently a grind, but 18 points from a possible 18 while in chasing mode. It was an illustration of a doggedness that wasn't there in the final weeks of Brendan Rodgers' time and that was embarrassingly absent during the calamitous weeks of Wilfried Nancy's period in charge. Now they've made it 21 points out of 21 and they're champions again. They've hunted down and overtaken a Hearts side that has done very little wrong all season. After walking into a shambles, exiting and then re-entering an even bigger shambles, O'Neill has won 19 of his 23 Premiership games with just two losses. They are not impressive winners but they are worthy winners. They've triumphed on the back of spirit rather than class. They've benefitted from some extremely controversial calls along the way - particularly in recent weeks - but a race is run across an entire campaign and their fans will not be slow in telling you about decisions they felt went against them, and for Hearts, over the past 10 months. That's a wearying game to play, not that it's stopping people from playing it. Celtic stun Hearts with late double to snatch title in astonishing finale Latest Celtic news, analysis and fan views Title only masks season of discontentTheir victory merits proper analysis, though. The Celtic board should be doing a deep dive on this stuff rather than solely basking in their win and concluding that another title shows that not much is wrong at Celtic Park, when it plainly is. After the cheering they need to do some serious analysing. They need some brutal honesty. Celtic won the league with 82 points - 10 fewer than last season, 11 fewer than the season before, 17 fewer than the season before that. If you have high standards, then that direction of travel should be seen as a challenge. They scored 73 goals - a massive reduction on last season's 112, and on the 95, 114, 92 and 92 in the seasons that went before. It's their lowest tally of league goals in 19 years. That's a stark reflection on their lame search for a striker to replace Kyogo Furuhashi, who left well over a year ago. His countryman, Daizen Maeda, coming good at the end of the season was enormously significant. They conceded 41 league goals - their highest total in 33 years. That is, in part, a consequence of something outside their control. Cameron Carter-Vickers and Alistair Johnston only played 13 league games between them. Celtic might well end up with a double that nobody saw coming. That's on O'Neill, and his ability to navigate his way through the toxicity that's existed in the club all season. For O'Neill, this is fairytale stuff. A gap of 20 years and another title. Figure caption, Celtic celebrate after clinching title on dramatic final day At the start of the season, with Rodgers seemingly imperious, the notion that the septuagenarian was going to return to Parkhead not just once but twice, and steer home a troubled club, would have been outlandish. Truth, sometimes, is stranger than fiction. And Celtic's truth has been wild. O'Neill has ensured a happy ending, but so much of what went before was angry and divisive. Hostility reigned supreme until an uneasy truce towards the end of the season. It all kicked off with that Champions League exit at the hands of Kairat Almaty. Two games, zero goals and a transfer window that enraged the supporters. Celtic won four games out of 12 in Europe. The summer arrivals: Kieran Tierney, Isaac English, Ross Doohan, Benjamin Nygren, Callum Osmand, Hayato Inamura, Shin Yamada, Jahmai Simpson-Pusey, Michel-Ange Balikwisha, Marcelo Saracchi, Sebastien Tounekti and Kelechi Iheanacho. Only five of those made it into double figures in league appearances. Others rarely, if ever, featured. Rodgers said a few of them were "club signings", the inference being that they weren't his choices. His rhetoric caused ructions behind the scenes. It would spill out in public soon enough. Rodgers, agitated and agitating about the business done in the market, infamously likened his squad to a Honda Civic rather than the Ferrari he wanted to

Truth stranger than fiction as O'Neill leads Celtic from hostility to happiness

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