Scotland's all-time leading capped player was a special guest at Parkhead for the 3-0 win over Aberdeen on Wednesday night
Kenny Dalglish on the pitch ahead of kick-off between Celtic and Aberdeen(Image: Steve Welsh/PA Wire)
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They don’t make them like they used to. Especially when we used to make them like Kenny Dalglish.
Martin O’Neill was thrilled to catch up with the former Celtic and Liverpool great on his visit to Parkhead in midweek.
And it only brought home all the issues Scottish clubs were wrestling with at yesterday’s SFA summit on the future of our game.
O’Neill faced Dalglish when he was at Nottingham Forest and the Scot was starring at Anfield, and could see the Tartan Army hero was a genuine world-class talent.
They are few and far between these days and while O’Neill knows he has enough on his plate sorting out Celts, the Scottish talent factor stalling has a knock-on effect on his job.
O’Neill had to work out his Europa League squad in midweek and UEFA rules dictate there has to be eight homegrown players in the 25-man group.
That’s fine for now with the likes of Callum McGregor, Kieran Tierney, and James Forrest around.
But those guys are not going to last forever and filling the Scots quota could be tougher than ever.
If only there was a Dalglish around.
O’Neill said: “I saw him in the tunnel and spoke to him. He was the best British player in my time in the game, absolutely extraordinary.
“I knew he was good for Celtic but I didn’t realise just how good he was, just brilliant. He proved himself in Britain and in the European scene, he was phenomenal.
“Anything Kenny says I would take on board, that’s for sure. I’m going to phone him and ask what he thought of the game…”
O’Neill has had a stressful enough summer recruiting for Celtic without having to fix Scottish football as well.
But he does understand why the clubs held their St Andrews powwow. He said: “It’s tough. Essentially a third of your squad has to be homegrown players.
Martin O'Neill(Image: SNS Group)
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“For a nation the size of Scotland, how does that compete to the likes of Germany population-wise? What do we do to contend with that? It’s almost the complete opposite.
“You have a squad that has a homegrown set of players and some of them are really fine.
“But you are trying to compete against the very best – who already have advantages to you – and that could be considered a disadvantage.
“It’s even more important to produce players. We need the young players coming through, absolutely. It’s difficult. We can have boys who come through here and then go to England at 16 years-old, so they don’t count. It’s difficult.”
O’Neill had to name two Scots kids on his bench when he was in charge at Parkhead first time around 25 years ago and he brought through talented youngsters such as Shaun Maloney, John Kennedy, Ross Wallace and Aiden McGeady.
But those players were not just box tickers – and that’s what is key. He said: “It’s got some merit, and it’s also got a lot of drawbacks as well, because eventually you need these players to be good enough.
“There’s no point if they get a false feeling that they have made the grade when they’re brought into the squad, and they’re maybe miles away from it, but you’ve had to do it because of a reason.
“And secondly, and you know the old selfish reason, as a football manager, you have to try and win some games. So, it is a difficult one.
“I’ve always had this feeling that if you’re good enough, you will come through. Of course, you need people to believe in you very, very early on.
“You need coaches to believe in you, you need a manager to believe in you, and you need belief in yourself. But if you are good enough, you will come through.
“My concern is that the players are naturally being taken away so early here, out of Scotland, because the rewards, or seemingly the rewards, or the immediate rewards are a lot of finance to the player and the family, are things that you probably can’t turn down.”
The Scottish angle was just another figure for O’Neill’s Europa League squad calculator.
And he couldn’t find a way to get half of his half dozen deadline day arrivals into the UEFA list.
Chelsea loans Shim Mhueka and Landon Emenalo didn’t make it, along with £3.4m PSV recruit Joel van den Berg.
Celtic's Joel van den Berg(Image: SNS Group)
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It was a tough call but O’Neill hinted where his priorities lie this term. He said: “In an ideal world, I would have had them all on board and give people an extra incentive.
“But our bread and butter is the league. And players, young players coming to the football club now, either on loan or permanently, let’s go and prove yourself at league level here.
“If we are fortunate enough to stay in the Europa League until after January time then these next three or four months will prove whether they will join that list in January time. I would have loved to have had them all in, but I had to learn from last season that I didn’t know the rules.”
O’Neill knows the Glasgow rules though – win at all costs.
And he’s out to make it three on the spin at St Mirren tonight. The new batch has given him plenty of options – including in goal with Sam Johnstone drafted in from Wolves to challenge Viljami Sinisalo.
He said: “I think he will be a good acquisition for us and he will want to back in the limelight again.
“Sam is 33 and is a child in goalkeeping terms. He wants to get his career up and running again, and if he gets an opportunity he has to take it.”