MARTIN O’NEILL arrived back at Celtic in a chauffeur driver private car.
Luke McCowan reckons it might as well have been a DeLorean.
Because when the club’s legendary manager walked through the front door he thought he was in some sort of TIME MACHINE.
The lifelong Hoops fan grew up on stories of O’Neill’s team from 25 years ago.
So working with O’Neill and Shaun Maloney for these past few weeks has been a surreal experience for the midfielder.
McCowan said: “I thought I was in a time machine.
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“It’s kind of been like that even with Jota coming back as well and Kieran coming back too.
“You’re kind of like ‘what the heck’s going on here?’
“And when the gaffer came in, all I could think about was the UEFA Cup final and what he said in the dressing room?
“Luckily enough, I can now just ask Shaun!
“But no, it’s been amazing. The gaffer has got that aura and almost legendary status at this club.
“So fair play to him coming back and helping us out when we kind of needed it.
“I haven’t asked about Seville yet. No, I’m too scared. I’m going to wait.
“It’s too serious at the moment. We’re all focusing on games, left, right and centre.
“There’ll be a time for that if they are still about for international break because I’m not going anywhere. If he’s about he’ll get a few questions then.’
“It’s the same with my dad, who was buzzing when he came back. He kept pestering me with questions, but I’m just trying to play it cool.”
McCowan better be quick.
It looks like Celtic are closing in on a new manager with Wilfried Nancy now the clear frontrunner to replace Brendan Rodgers.
But if it does turn out that the Northern Irishman won’t be back in the dugout, the midfielder will just be thrilled to be able to say he played for him.
He added: “I mean, it’s Martin O’Neill at the end of the day.
“He’s got that aura and brings that motivating factor of what it means to play for this club, as did the previous manager as well.
“He just brings that different kind of speech before a game and just puts full belief in everybody that’s in a squad and is really, really forward to everybody as well.
“He doesn’t make you think anything. He just tells you how it is.
“The guys know in the dressing room that they are all valued and we need to use that because the season’s long and, as you’re seeing, left, right and centre, we’re getting injuries everywhere and it’s about squad players coming up and stepping up when they can.”
O’Neill at 73 is seen by many as an old school motivator. But there’s nothing wrong with that even in this day and age. McCowan added: “There are still tactics within that.
“It’s not just, let’s just kick it long.
“Yes, he comes in with the message of ‘defenders do your job first, attackers score your goals,’ whatever it may be.
“That is the message that’s from him. But we’ve got so much tactics within that, that it’s not just him that comes in and it’s his one message.
“It’s everybody within the staff that’s at the club, all the boys, have got valued comments on how we’re playing, what we’re doing. The messages are clear.
“The gaffer brings that message, but there’s so many tactics within it.”
One thing O’Neill is giving the Celtic board, though, is TIME to get the right man.
If that takes longer than they hope then the teams in safe hands.
McCowan added: “You’ve got the international break where all the guys are away representing their countries.
“The team’s in an all right place, winning the semi-final, a couple of games in the league we’ve won.
“Whenever it’s called upon or whenever it’s changed, it’s not up to the players.
“The players have just got to keep focusing on what we’re doing and keep putting the performances in that lead to three points.”
Celtic closed the gap on league leaders Hearts with a 4-0 win over Killie on Sunday but McCowan insists the Hoops stars aren’t paying too much attention to the Jambos, who drew at home to Dundee United.
He added: “They can’t be in our through process.
“The boys know that we’ve probably not started the season as well as what we wanted.
“So, we can’t get into games hoping that they slip up.
“We just need to go into games where the main focus of us playing well, scoring goals, being the kind of threat we can be, making teams fear coming here.
“We need to get back into that mantra.
“I know Cal’s obviously said it previously as well, but the people that can affect games, it’s the players mainly.
All of us guys know that it’s us that are on the pitch, regardless of who’s in charge, and we need to put good performances.
Obviously, different managers come in with slightly different styles here and there, whatever it may be.
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But we just know the positive performances come from us first. The attitude comes from us, the mentality comes from us, so we just need to keep pushing that.
“I’m sure if we do, we’ll keep charging on and hopefully get more positive results like Sunday.”
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