IF WE DON’T GO UP IN 18 MONTHS, I’LL WALK
O’Neill vow as he aims to lure Keane to Forest
MARTIN O’NEILL could have become Nottingham Forest manager on numerous occasions, the offer to build on his legend with the club having been made by more than one regime. But now he appreciates sentimentality is of little consequence.
‘The target is to get promotion,’ he said. ‘I’m here for 18 months and if we can’t get up, I’ll hand it over for somebody else to try.’
It is a short-term contract for a man long in years but listening to him yesterday at the City Ground, where he helped create miracles as a player for 10 years, was to hear the essence of enthusiasm.
‘I love football, that has never waned,’ he said. ‘I’ve reached an age where somebody could step in here, do really well and stay, and I’d retire and go off into the sunset and never have this opportunity.
‘I have a lot of very fond memories here. To go from promotion to the title, to League Cups, to European Cups, for a provincial club, was extraordinary. Heady days.
‘But don’t live in the past. I’m trying to carve a niche here for the current players. I’ve had a number of chances before, but I wasn’t sure if it was the right time. Maybe this is some sort of destiny.’
O’Neill would like to extend that sense of fate to Roy Keane, another former player who is in talks to join as No 2, reprising their partnership with the Republic of Ireland.
‘I would dearly like him to join us,’ O’Neill said. ‘He has things to consider. He wants to manage himself and he is very capable of doing that. He was a great asset to me with Ireland. He was tough to handle, no doubt, but it’s what makes him special. He drove Manchester United for 10 years, and he didn’t win things by just sitting around.’
O’Neill reflected on his own robust relationship with Brian Clough, retelling the story, a myth it turns out, of going into his manager’s office to ask why he was in Forest’s second team. ‘He said, “Because you’re too good for the third team”.’ O’Neill added: ‘I made that up, it still comes back to haunt me.’
Keane’s tongue was too fierce for some Ireland players, but O’Neill is attuned to it. ‘There are changes in the modern game that you address,’ he said. ‘What I am talking about is players being able to accept criticism and fighting back. That is my stance, but it is not everyone’s.’
It has been six years since O’Neill, 66, managed a club and the end at Ireland came with criticism of his methods. He accepts the landscape has changed since he was at Sunderland in 2013, but he made a compelling case for fitting well with Forest’s continental model.
In the main, O’Neill will leave transfers to others — centre back Yohan Benalouane joined from Leicester yesterday — and he believes his motivational skills can bridge a gap of four points to the play-off places. ‘I was asked to take ownership for the clubs when I went to Celtic, Leicester, Aston Villa,’ he said. ‘There are sporting directors now. It’s more collective.’
Asked what Clough would think of him sitting in the Forest dugout, O’Neill recalled his application for the Bradford job in 1987. ‘He said, “I will give you the recommendation of all time, don’t worry about that — but you are not getting my job”. He did send a recommendation — and I didn’t get the job.’
If O’Neill does secure promotion, he expects his Forest contract to be extended. ‘Surely that’s something to be looked at if that’s the case,’ he said. ‘I feel very young.’