History shows us that football doesn’t tend to do Hollywood-style endings.For every legendary player or manager who’s been carried out shoulder high, there’s a dozen who were smuggled out a side door having overstayed their welcome.Back in May, Celtic and Martin O’Neill were afforded that rarest of opportunities. On the back of leading the club to the most remarkable Double, the Northern Irishman could have sailed off into the sunset, his legacy enhanced.After a turbulent campaign which encompassed eight league defeats, it felt like the perfect time for a reset. Retaining O’Neill in some capacity to work in tandem with a younger manager such as Jens Berthel Askou seemed like the smart play.But with the highly impressive Motherwell boss soon bound for Toulouse, O’Neill’s return to the radio studio and the after-dinner speaker circuit was postponed yet again.The irony was that what the club’s hierarchy would have seen as the most risk-averse appointment possible was anything but that. Martin O’Neill was left frustrated after watching his side go down to Ferencvaros this weekO’Neill turned 74 earlier this year. He’s in fine fettle for a man of his age, but no one can hold back time.While it may feel he was leaping up and down the touchline at Parkhead for the first time about a fortnight ago, a quarter of a century has come and gone since he first blew into Glasgow like a tornado.He had a spell in hospital at the start of this season and although he’s thankfully made a full recovery, it’s only natural to question the wisdom of he and the club agreeing that another gruelling season in the hot-seat was the best course of action.‘I had a problem when the surgeon said to me I had to take these tablets,’ said O’Neill with a smile. ‘He said, you take one a day for the rest of your life. God, when they give me five… I was really, really worried.’The received wisdom is that a manager of Celtic or Rangers has a shelf-life of four or five years before they experience burnout. That comes with the caveat of being successful — as O’Neill certainly was, first time around.Events of the past few weeks would put years on anyone, though. A horrific defeat to LASK has now been compounded by comprehensive losses to Rangers and Ferencvaros.O’Neill’s incredible success over two spells two decades apart is set in stone. Yet it affords him little protection from the criticism that’s now coming his way. He doesn’t hide from the brutal reality of it.‘Celtic will replace me when the moment is right,’ he added.He contends, however, that he has the necessary zeal to battle on. The opportunity to do so is, naturally, contingent on results picking up.‘I think I will always have that,’ he said. ‘That’s probably the thing that’s maybe kept me going. O’Neill cemented his status as a Celtic legend last season by winning a domestic Double‘Does it guarantee you winning football matches? I’m not sure about that. So, I might have the energy, but if we keep losing football matches, I might not get the chance to re-energise myself. It’s the nature of the game.’Even the veteran’s harshest critic at this moment wouldn’t suggest that he’s the full extent of Celtic’s issues.The club’s hierarchy seems to have no grand plan or strategy other than stockpiling cash which is amassed by flogging the family silver and participating in invariably embarrassing European campaigns.The early signs are that the summer transfer window was yet another when the quality of the overall squad has got poorer, not better.But whatever you might think about Celtic’s recruitment in recent times, it’s still incumbent on a manager and his coaching staff to find an effective shape and establish a game-plan to provide a reasonable chance of success.The plain fact is that in Linz, at Ibrox and at Parkhead on Thursday, O’Neill’s side looked short on ideas.When the formation is switching between a 4-3-3, a 4-2-3-1 and a 4-4-2 — sometimes in-game — and the personnel changes so radically, it doesn’t suggest that the management team feel they know their best side and how to deploy it.‘The idea is to try and get a system that you feel the players are comfortable in, but also to be able to give you the best chance of getting your most potent players on the field,’ the manager said. ‘But systems don’t actually win football games for you.‘Even when we went 4-4-2 last night for the second half, they scored immediately, but it had nothing to do with us playing 4-4-2.’What was again more damaging for Celtic was how timid they became on the ball after a decent start and how ineffective they became without it. ‘A little bit broken in how we want to play,’ was how skipper Callum McGregor put it. Celtic will be looking for revenge against Rangers after losing to their rivals last time outTo fix it, the manager needs his charges to play with greater personality and bravery.‘They went into their shell a little bit,’ said O’Neill of the 3-1 loss. ‘I wouldn’t dispute that, that is true.‘I think [there was] a little bit of frustration with the crowd, quite rightly because we come out with the ball, then we get a certain distance, it looks as if there’s nothing on for us to play then it goes backwards.‘If it continues to go backwards, then of course it would be frustrating for the crowd to see that.’There’s little to be gained in O’Neill harking back to the days of Larsson, Sutton and Lennon — a side of ridiculous ability but also extraordinary mental strength. But unless this current outfit quickly finds some kind of backbone, it’s got no chance of turning the corner.‘You’re comparing this to a team who had major characters and major resilience,’ said the veteran. ‘It could take a defeat badly but could get over it and be ready. If you stay here long enough, you should be able to learn that.’On the evidence of what followed after Linz and Ibrox, the penny hasn’t yet dropped. And if there’s no appreciable difference in attitude and application when Rangers come across town tomorrow, you suspect there never will be.The septuagenarian in the dug-out is clearly still up for the fight. But he needs to land a major blow if even his most ardent supporters aren’t quickly to grow sick and tired of what they are routinely witnessing.