who is the greatest celtic manager since stein and maley?

Martin oneil for me am afraid built a cracking team and within a season we were pumping the hunns 6-2 and winning trebbles!!!

Built a great team who lost very rarely and gave us all glorious nights in europe a will never forget, without a doubt the best manager since stein

Wish he was still here, he would have the beating of smith and this rangers team anyday!!!

 

Under different circumstances i would have loved to put Tommy Burns in here because that was a good year for football at Celtic Park.

But it's a coin toss between Strachan and O'Neill, it wasn't always roses with either manager but i think out of the two of them Strachan had the weaker team yet achieved the last 16 twice, something O'Neill didn't manage, but O'Neill had Seville...

Tough choice...

 

john barnes - cos a just felt like it

 

MON, not even close. Created a great team from next to nothing. Strachan took the team MON built and gently pointed the nose down to the gound

not true. Martin O'Neill inherited a good team with players like mjallby, lambert, larsson,petrov,petta etc. On top of that he was able to spend 30mil (which actually got you good players back then) and created a good side which won 2 in a row and went to the uefa cup final. An entertaining side but most of the team were already at the clubs.

Strachan inherited a team dead on its feet and was told to lower the wages etc and lost many players. On average he was only able to spend around 7mil every summer. He achieved more than O'Neill did and therefore didnt simply steer the plane to the ground

 

Dam you Barnes was my choice , but seriously I think our best coach will be who ever replaces the swamp creature we have in charge right now

 

Strachan wud b quite proud of coming second I dnt think the guy thinks hes liked which is sad cos its after he left i realise what a good job he done and most successful manager since Stein, I chose MON though just great great times and i regard his team as my celtic team growing up.

 

Some hundercover agents voted for Barnes i see!

 

next to nothing??-He inheried Lubo, Henke, Stan, Lambo, Mjallby and Jackie and he was able to go out and buy 4 EPL players and others and pay their huge wages. MON was the closest to having a silver spoon and being a cheque book manager in our history.

If pointing to the ground means taking a team that has lost 2 or the last 3 titles and immediately doing 3 in a row and 2 CL last 16s then point the nose away.

All this poll tells you is who was the most popular manager. The achievement list (no ifs or buts) in the 2 that matter -the SPL and the CL shows WGS was the 2nd best since Stein. Granted MON was not too far behind but he was not as successful despite a much easier ride in terms of the players whose wages we could afford etc.

 

undoubtedly, MON had a better squad inherited but WGS inherited an ageing squad of winners whereas MON had a squad of losers; the change was so drastic in only 1 year so thats why MON gets my vote though i respect (and enjoyed!) everything WGS achieved in his time here; Tommy Burns was pretty good aswell he just just had the misfortune to come up against the strongest, richest Rangers side ever

 

It is sad though that WGS should be happy with getting outvoted 3-1 by a manager he bettered on both domestic titles and CL progress. By all rights the vote should be very close not 3-1. Maybe still a little too early for WGS to be fully appreciated although Mogga is doing his best to make that happen:icon_mrgreen:

As for sudden change, I think going from an old side on the slide who had lost the title twice in three years (and how bad we were was covered up by Bellamy to a large degree)and playing terrible 1-D football to WGS's first season was massive. Although the football got more defensive in his next two seasons, I think our CL achievements were built on that approach and perhaps it fed through into the SPL football where it was a lot less neccessary.

 

Yes Martin O'Neill inherited quite a few talented players but let's not forget that Gordon Strachan made some hay out of what he inherited from Martin O'Neill as well. Strachan inherited a team with a backbone of Balde, Lennon, Petrov and Hartson. He used that spine to full effect to win his first title. I get the distinct impression sometimes that people are painting the picture that Strachan was left with nothing to work with and that is just not true. Alan Thompson also made a contribution in the first half of Strachan's first season before being bombed out.

I'm not trying to diminish what Strachan did in his first season, it was the only season under him I enjoyed in fact, but he was left the spine of a good team to work with just the same as Martin O'Neill was.

 

There are key differences IMO:

MoN inherited: Henrik Larsson, one of our greatest strikers ever, if not THE.
Paul Lambert, CL winner, bags of experience, World Class.
Stan Petrov - up and coming Bulgaria Captain.
Johan Mjallby - probably our best CB of the past 20 years.
Plus Lubo/Jackie Mac, and a huge war-chest.

WGS inherited: "Bombscare" Balde, Lennon (ageing, 1 season worth), Petrov (sold over WGS head), Hartson (again old and past it).
The other standouts are Agathe, Thompson and Sutton who were all invariably at the end of their career. Plus a meagre war-chest and an external climate in England of super-money.

To me there is a world of difference, so to find that WGS was more successful is a real eye opener.

 

I could flip that over and say that Martin O'Neill had to beat a Rangers team that were investing heavily and had a higher quality of player than what Gordon Strachan had to face. Strachan faced Le Guen's debacle of a team and a Rangers who were tightening their belts more and more as time went on.

There are points to be made on both sides to be honest.

 

We have not had a great manager since Big Jock. Only a couple of successful ones with Strachan just heading it against MON.

 

Has to be O'Neill for me.

Although I liked the style under Tommy. He bought well and played good football, just a shame he was up against such a quality Rangers team.

 

The initial argument was about inheritences, with MoN's inheritence vastly outweighing Strachans in my opinion.

If we're going to argue about the respective Rangers sides, let's not forget that it was Alex McLeish's side of freebies and rejects such as Hamed Namouchi and Nuno Capucho that pipped MoN's megastars to the post in 03 and 05...

 

O'Neill's inheritance probably did outweigh Strachan's. I'm not saying otherwise. All I was pointing out was that Strachan had not a bad little inheritance himself although some people seem to suggest he was left with nothing to work with, which isn't true.

Yes the Rangers team that won the league in '05 was not a particularly good team. The team that won the league in '03 was a really strong team though. A team that would have cuffed any of Strachan's Celtic teams imo. They won the league with 97pts(I think?) that season and they would have had to be good to beat our team of the time to the title. Even withstanding the fact we got to Seville we still took it down to goal difference. It was a remarkable achievement that we racked up that many points while getting to a European Final as well.

Martin O'Neill lost a league through getting us to a European Final whereas Gordon Strachan inherited one of his through Rangers suffering the same fatigue brought about through fixture congestion that our Seville team suffered. Make of that what you will. I know what it tells me but then I'd imagine every one on here knows what I think about O'Neill and Strachan by this time.

EDIT: The Rangers team of '05 actually accumulated more League points than any of Gordon Strachan's teams ever did as well. So they couldn't have been completely hopeless.

 

Probably did

No Rangers (or Celtic) team have been completely hopeless.

But there are simple facts that you can't get around:
1) Martin O'Neill inherited a lot more
2) Martin O'Neill had a larger war chest
3) Martin O'Neill achieved less

Make of that what you will.

 

Tony Mowbray, Tony Mowbray , Tony Moybrayyyyyyyy (8)

 

I simply do not accept that Martin O'Neill achieved less. O'Neill put more trophies in the cabinet and took us to the biggest game in our lifetime by taking us to Seville. When you add in the mince football under Strachan then it's a no brainer for me.