The Sports Diary's condolences go in particular to the men in the green blazers at Celtic Park who have been under fire as it emerged they have kept Martin O'Neill on the Parkhead payroll. The pontificators have been busy pillorying the Celtic board for paying O'Neill 500,000 a year as a consultant. It's a dreadful waste of money, they say.

They also hint that the presence of O'Neill in the background undermines the position of manager Gordon Strachan. These may be valid points, and we are sure the pundits are making the comments purely out of concern for Celtic and in no sense are they using any old excuse to give the club a kicking.

O'Neill, second only to [Jock Stein] in the modern era of Celtic managers when it came to turning round the club's footballing fortunes, had his time at Celtic Park cut short by family illness. Unlike the old board's niggardly treatment of Stein, the present directors appear to have done the decent thing with O'Neill.