Martin O’Neill says he would love to return to the dugout – five years on from his last spell in management.
O’Neill hasn’t held a coaching role since his short-lived stint with Nottingham Forest, the club where he won two European Cups and a league title, which ended in June 2019.
He is open to another job in the game, but fears that his age – he turned 72 last March – will stand against him.
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The former Ireland manager reckons owners at the top clubs are far too eager to go for younger bosses these days.
“I’ve absolutely missed the game,” O’Neill said on The Football Authorities podcast. “I think that will always be the case regardless of what age I am.”
“I think that people are looking for younger ones – younger managers, younger coaches, and coaches as distinct from being a manager.
“When I was a manager, I actually managed the football club. I’ll never forget when I went to Celtic, Dermot Desmond – who was the major shareholder of Celtic at the time – said, ‘I want you to take ownership of the club. I want you to run it from top to bottom’.”
O’Neill doesn’t believe age has diminished his ability to manage.
“No, I don’t feel it. I absolutely don’t. I mean, I’m past 70 now at this minute, but I feel as if I’m about 36 years of age,” he said.
It’s almost 40 years since O’Neill took his first steps in management, in non-league football, before he landed a pivotal switch to Wycombe Wanderers in 1990.
Promotion success there earned him a move to Norwich and then Leicester, where he won two League Cups and was touted as a future Manchester United boss.
At Celtic he won three Scottish titles and three Scottish Cups, and reached the final of the 2002/03 UEFA Cup.
After spells at Aston Villa and Sunderland, he was appointed Ireland manager in 2013 and led the country to the last-16 at Euro 2016, where they were narrowly beaten by hosts France.
Then came his six-month spell at Forest and O’Neill continued: “15, 20 years ago, international management seemed to be for the older gentlemen; you know, the one who’s done his time at club level.
“But I came back into club football after managing the Republic of Ireland.
“I think this is the one thing that I would want to stress is that I feel that something that is levelled to the older manager now, is the fact that he is unable or unwilling to pick up the new trends going through in football, and it was absolutely untrue.
“That would not be the case, and that wouldn’t be the case with any of the great managers.”