Limited company; While Martin O'Neill's contract negotiations remain

IT was Martin O'Neill himself who warned that nothing is forever, but the saga of his contractual future sure feels like a never- ending story.

That "nothing is forever" line has been bandied around and thrown back at him from the moment he let it slip before a pre-season friendly at Shelbourne. That happened to be one of those days when his future at Celtic bubbled back to the top of Scottish football's news agenda. It is up there again.

O'Neill was buffeted by so many questions about the matter on Friday that even he could not prevent another morsel of information dribbling out. Given that it will be a while yet before Celtic's plc board or O'Neill himself alerts the world's media to gather for the announcement that brings it all to an end, those who are hungry for insight can only piece together their opinions from any little hints or snippets of news which may leak out.

Several theories abound about O'Neill's intentions and the reason why talks have dragged on beyond all the dates by which he had hinted that things would be resolved. He did his best to nail one of them on Friday. O'Neill, displaying all his usual reluctance and unease when discussing the issue, claimed it was nonsense to suggest he was being deliberately non-committal or stringing Celtic along in the hope that an attractive vacancy would soon arise at an English Premiership club.

"I'll answer it like this: having a job in football is not bad these days. There are a number of very good managers out of work so I'm happy to be in work. I have never planned a managerial career ever. Those that can are absolutely brilliant or exceptionally lucky. It's not a case of me planning anything. I've never planned a move in my life."

O'Neill has eight months left on his initial three-year contract. The way he reacts to every Celtic goal reveals the instant gratification he takes from watching his team succeed. The underlying satisfaction, though, can only be compromised by how feebly the Old Firm are challenged in Scotland. His imagination and ambition cannot be satisfied by a conveyor belt of routine victories against every Premierleague club between the only meaningful barometers of form, the matches against Rangers. No doubt his pals on the BBC pundits' panel, Alan Hansen and Gary Lineker, tease him about all the playground bullying his team is guilty of in Scotland. The jokes would not be without foundation. Since O'Neill took over Celtic have lost only five league matches.

Even from the little he has said so far, it is possible to detect his restlessness. Getting a manager to sign a new deal is not as complicated as securing a United Nations resolution. If O'Neill had no reservations about staying at Celtic he would not have subjected himself to the ordeal of several months of media speculation and fans pulling at his sleeve for reassuring answers.

His dilemma is how to break the news to Celtic's supporters that he eventually wants to leave them behind. He might hope Celtic will agree to a one-year extension, or a two-year deal with get-out clauses freeing him to speak to other clubs. But the end result will involve his departure. O'Neill, 50, will not devote the years to Celtic that Sir Alex Ferguson has given Manchester United.

He is understood to be determined to avoid the malaise which afflicted Rangers in Walter Smith's last season, and United when Ferguson announced his retirement last season, by stalling and delaying any potentially demoralising announcement.

But where can he go? Neither continental management nor the international scene would seem to suit him. Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool have no need for him. Nor, for the time being, do Leeds, Newcastle, Chelsea, Tottenham or Aston Villa. Beyond those, there is hardly a club big enough for it to be worth his while to leave Celtic.

In any case, English chairmen may not currently look at O'Neill with quite the enthusiasm they did even six months ago. Rangers are top of the Premierleague and Celtic's Champions League elimination by the champions of Switzerland, Basel, did not go unnoticed. The club's imminent Uefa Cup ties with Blackburn Rovers have huge significance. Victory would re-establish his reputation outwith Scotland. Defeat would add to a sequence of recent disappointments and might require him to surrender his position as the most coveted manager in Britain, perhaps to Middlesbrough's Steve McClaren.

On Friday, O'Neill did not feel inclined to shed light on his thinking or the timescale for future announcements. That negotiations had run smoothly during his eight-hour meeting with chairman Brian Quinn on Thursday didn't seem like much of a revelation. "I'm just happy to listen and I think the board are happy to listen to me. It's flexible at the moment. But while I say there's no timescale, I accept the fact that at some stage or other all of us would want to come to some sort of conclusion."

The supporter's instinct is to accuse Quinn and the club's most influential shareholder, Dermot Desmond, of prevaricating and failing to offer O'Neill the terms and conditions he demands. It is almost certainly the manager, though, who has been reluctant to make room in his schedule for talks. A time may come when the board's frustration prompts directors into public comments which alter the supporters' perception of O'Neill's attitude.

"The board have made some very decent points and that's good," the manager went on. "I wouldn't want to say what's been discussed privately, but I think that the long-term future of the football club, young players coming through, the academy and things where we're behind, where we feel we can step up, those things will certainly be discussed. It's not just the immediate future of the club, it's where they want to go."

For the time being, O'Neill and Celtic have two interesting games to divert their attention. This afternoon, the team plays for the first time since sharing six goals with Rangers a fortnight ago. The opposition, Hearts, seem capable of offering the most substantial challenge to the Old Firm this season. O'Neill admires the "unity" of Craig Levein's team.

Then, on Wednesday, Celtic face the side which hastened O'Neill's arrival in Scotland in the first place. Caledonian Thistle's 3-1 victory at Parkhead in the Tennent's Scottish Cup two-and-a-half years ago was to be John Barnes' last game in charge of Celtic. Kenny Dalglish briefly stepped in, but soon the wheels were in motion to bring O'Neill from Leicester City.

On the fateful night of Caley Thistle's win O'Neill was at a match in England and returned to his car to switch on the radio. A sports bulletin was reporting that there were only a few minutes left and Celtic were about to suffer a humiliating defeat.

"It was a result you knew wouldn't augur too well," he said. "The players will tell you that it was as bad a night as you're likely to see. I don't think they were overly happy about going over to their cars after the game.

"Results like that can happen. You can lose a game. But I think that was to do with the general state of affairs around Celtic Park at the time. A bad result like that is difficult to withstand."

It is the measure of O'Neill's transformation of the club, of course, that a repeat result on Wednesday is unthinkable.

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