1st November 2026; Falkirk Stadium, Falkirk, Scotland; Scottish Premiership Football, Falkirk versus Celtic; Ex Celtic player Chris Sutton speaks on Sky Sports
Chris Sutton has called out Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham for their role in the regression at Celtic.
As Martin O’Neill is never slow to point out Celtic are top of the SPFL Premiership.
They are also on a run of winning three of their last 10 matches. Celtic are sitting in 35th place out of 36 in the Europa League, not many fans are confident of avoiding defeat from Besiktas on Thursday.
Since the Champions League exit to LASK Linz Celtic have looked vulnerable and uncertain.
In their last two domestic matches there is a feeling that clubs with much lesser resources are getting joy through superior tactics and organisation.
Maloney and Fotheringham came with the O’Neill package a year ago. Maloney stepped up from being Professional Pathway Manager and put in the phone call to Fotheringham.
Neither had previously coached alongside O’Neill.
SUTTON CAN COMPARE NOW AND THEN
First time around O’Neill revelled in his lack of involvement on the training ground.
Clough-like he appeared late in the day to organise and inspire players coached to play in a certain fashion.
It worked well. Twenty years down the line there seems little evidence of the same relationship between O’Neill and his first team coaches.
Reflecting on the defeat at Falkirk Sutton told Sky Sports:
Celtic have had issues all season. It’s not a great surprise that Celtic have come to Falkirk and been rolled over.
They weren’t great in the week and I still don’t think Martin O’Neill knows his best XI.
There’s not an area of the team or the club that is functioning as it should this season and that’s a problem.
There’s this big debate about Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham and their coaching, or is it on Martin?
This is all on Martin because he employs the coaches and he will ask them to play and train in a certain way.
It’s hard to see how Celtic are actually set up. It’s a bit off the cuff – get the ball to Hassan and hope he can do something. That’s the way it has been essentially all season.
Things don’t get any easier for Celtic with Besiktas their next opponents.
More and more questions are being asked of Celtic and O’Neill. Only winning matches provides positive answers.
After Besiktas there is a home match against Kilmarnock before the November international break.
Anything less than two wins will increase the pressure on O’Neill as concerns grow among supporters.
Following the international break Celtic are headlong into a demanding run of fixtures.
As November moves into December they face three away matches in a week away to Torreense, Hearts and Dundee
I really do think a walk out in the 67th minute of the match would be very effective. Symbolically representing the year Celtic were the best team in Europe and, at 23 minutes to go, and 2003 being the last year that Celtic had a comparable match and not that long before the DD takeover where PL announced a range of redundancies and a swathe of cost cutting measures whilst introducing an Austerity programme which endures to this day where bank balance cash is king and Chronic lack of investment and managed and unmanaged decline is the order of the day.
Sutton simply CANNOT criticise anyone at management…
He was a catastrophic failure at Lincoln City never to be seen in a dug out again !
And that means he can’t have an opinion why?
By that logic none of us have managed professionally so we can’t comment either.
Without Sutton in the media, we simply would have no one to critical or supportive of our club as it’s Sevco orientated.
were becoming sevco in disguise
Is this season developing into the Perfect Storm?
Regardless of how the team actually played in recent seasons,
the steady stream of silverware was the Board’s ready-made excuse for not changing,
or even attempting to be ‘world class’ in anything?
The real risk is that this season we could win hee-haw.
The Board won’t have any excuses then.
…and then it will get really messy at the club…?