Should Celtic’s shortlist include Maloney? Is Shaun now a contender?

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The Celtic Star

·6 novembre 2025

Should Celtic’s shortlist include Maloney? Is Shaun now a contender?

When Shaun Maloney sat beside Martin O’Neill for that first press conference after Brendan Rodgers’ resignation, Celtic supporters were offered a kind of stability that felt reassuring precisely because it was temporary…

Shaun Maloney and Martin O’Neill at Celtic Park on October 28, 2025 (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Maloney stressed he wasn’t angling for the long-term job and intended to return to his usual role. O’Neill echoed the sentiment. A short-term arrangement, a necessary intervention, a steadying pair of hands. Nothing more dramatic than that. Nothing to unsettle a club already teetering.

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It felt like a sticking plaster applied over a wound everyone hoped would heal quickly.

Celtic v Falkirk 29.10.2025 Scottish Premiership. Johnny Kenny goal 1-0. Photo Kenny Ramsay IMAGO

And then Celtic won a couple of games!

Callum Osmand scores. Celtic v theRangers. Premier Sports Cup, semi final at Hampden. 2 November 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

It’s easy, almost instinctive, to chalk the sudden uplift down to recency bias or the sheer relief of escaping football that had turned heavy, predictable, and arguably joyless since early spring.

But something about these past couple of weeks has carried a different texture. The football is simpler, more direct, less busy. It’s clearer to the eye for us watching, and also looks easier for the players to execute.

The atmosphere has shifted from resignation to something approaching enthusiasm. Celtic suddenly resemble a group enjoying the job again.

Maloney appears to have struck a chord inside the dressing room

Shaun Maloney and Martin O’Neill. Celtic v theRangers. Premier Sports Cup, semi final at Hampden. 2 November 2025. Photo AJ (The Celtic Star)

Callum Osmand’s emergence grabbed the immediate attention, and understandably so, but Maloney’s references didn’t stop at the young talent. He spoke about leaning on experienced heads, and while names like Kasper Schmeichel and Callum McGregor fit the expected script, what stood out was the emphasis on players who aren’t currently on the pitch. Alistair Johnston and Cameron Carter-Vickers were given prominent mention, not as footnotes but as part of the emotional and structural core of the squad.

Cameron Carter-Vickers of Celtic on the ground with suspected injury at full-time. Final score Celtic 2 Sturm Graz 1. Celtic v Sturm Graz, UEFA Europa League, Group Stage, Celtic Park, 23 October 2025. Photo Stuart Wallace IMAGO/Shutterstock

Carter-Vickers, just out of surgery and in a plaster that will rule him out for months, insisted on being at the game. He could have opted for warmth, family time, or rest, all perfectly understandable choices for someone recovering from a serious operation.

Instead, he navigated stadium stairs on crutches and squeezed into a seat where any stray foot could have made his recovery significantly more painful, simply because he wanted to stand with teammates who have lost leaders to transfers, lost others to injury, and now rely on unity more than ever.

These gestures, perhaps small on the surface, are often the earliest signs of genuine team spirit. And it is perhaps spirit, and not just systems, that Celtic have looked short of for too long.

Mark Fotheringham at Hampden. Celtic v theRangers. Premier Sports Cup, semi final at Hampden. 2 November 2025. Photo AJ (The Celtic Star)

Then comes Mark Fotheringham, reportedly offered his role at 11pm and at work before dawn the next day, a detail that signals something about the hunger and energy now flickering inside Lennoxtown. Alongside him is Stephen McManus, part of a staff that, intentionally or not, suddenly looks coherent and invested.

Shay Given and Stephen McManus, with the English and Scottish League Cups at Celtic Park on 12 June 2025 ahead of the Celtic v Newcastle Utd friendly on 19 July 2025. Photo The Celtic Star.

Celtic must plan for the future

This raises questions that seemed implausible just a fortnight ago. With O’Neill almost certainly returning to his retirement by, at the latest, the end of the campaign, Celtic must plan for the future.

But should that planning now include Maloney? Should Fotheringham and McManus be seen not as temporary assistants but as the early pieces of a long-term structure? Should the club look for a manager who arrives with an entourage, or someone who fits into a system already forming within the building?

Celtic supporters at Hampden. Celtic v theRangers. Premier Sports Cup, semi final at Hampden. 2 November 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

The danger, of course, is misreading the moment. Celtic supporters know the sensation only too well. The morphine hit. You’ve been in pain for months, the nurse administers a dose, suddenly the fog lifts and everything feels manageable. You start to think you’re ready to go home. But when it fades, reality returns and you realise the recovery has a long, long way to go. Right now, Celtic are somewhere in that emotional space, enjoying clarity after a period of muddled, exhausting football, but unsure whether the improvement represents something lasting or merely a temporary easing of strain.

So, what exactly are we watching? A squad re-engaging after being unshackled? A coaching team unlocking something that was there all along? A brief spark that will fade once the adrenaline dissipates? Or the early evidence of a cultural shift that could quietly underpin Celtic’s next era?

It is too soon to know, but it no longer feels foolish to ask.

What is unmistakable, though, is that something in the atmosphere has changed. Players who looked spent now look alert. Injured leaders refuse to drift to the margins. Youngsters are trusted and thriving. Those pushed to the sidelines, like Trusty, like Engels, look vital now. Coaches spoken of as temporary are behaving with the commitment of professionals building something substantial. Whether this is a short-term uplift or the first rumblings of a deeper transformation, Celtic have rediscovered something they had lost, a connection.

Arne Engels. Celtic v theRangers. Premier Sports Cup, semi final at Hampden. 2 November 2025. Photo AJ (The Celtic Star)

Maybe that’s all it is. Maybe that’s enough. Or maybe, just maybe, Celtic have stumbled onto something much bigger than anyone expected when that ‘temporary’ press conference took place.

But if Celtic have indeed stumbled onto something meaningful, time will be the judge. A couple of matches can lift a mood, but a larger sample size is required to know whether this is renewal or merely respite.

For now, though, the club feels alive in a way it hasn’t for some time, and that in itself is no small thing. The morphine may yet wear off and the pain may yet return. But every recovery has to start somewhere, and perhaps this is Celtic’s first steady breath after a long spell under water.

Niall J

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