Forget high and mighty principles ... Rohl and O'Neill have reminded us that winning is the only thing that matters for managers at the Old Firm

LET’S be clear on one thing. It’s more than just ‘surreal’, as the man himself puts it, to see 73-year-old Martin O’Neill, six years or so out of management and all about his radio and his book tours, back in the Celtic dug-out.

It’s insane, really. It’s such an indictment of the mess the Scottish champions allowed themselves to get into during the dying days of former manager Brendan Rodgers’ collapsing reign that they now find themselves entering an Old Firm cup semi with a head coach who claims he knows only a handful of the players.

There can only be one reason he was given the call to return. He is loved at Parkhead. His very presence can be a diversion, an antidote to the toxicity in the stadium, and help shield a board coming under pressure as they attempt to find a new boss – or wait until major shareholder Dermot Desmond finds one – to make things better.

Much of that might depend on how things work out against Rangers at Hampden on Sunday afternoon, of course. However, these early days of O’Neill’s return – coupled with this embryonic stage of Danny Rohl’s reign across Glasgow – do have the potential to signal a vital reset on both sides of the Old Firm divide.

Namely, a move away from the focus on styles and philosophies and DNA and ‘playing the right way’ and getting back to reminding people what Celtic and Rangers really ought to be about. Victories. At all costs.

O’Neill summed it up so succinctly on Friday when being asked about replicating the 6-2 home triumph in his first derby as manager of Celtic back in 2000.

‘I’d settle for a really lousy 1-0 victory if we could get it,’ he said.

And so, truth be told, would every other Celtic fan inside Hampden. Because seeing your team come out on top is what it’s about. Particularly at the likes of Celtic and Rangers, teams with huge financial advantages on the domestic scene who should be beating the opposition pretty much all the time.

A lot’s been said in recent times about the necessity of winning every week if you are a manager at one of the Big Two. It’s not true, though, is it?

Rangers have had a number of head coaches kept on way too long – the most recent one in Russell Martin perhaps the perfect example - when results have not been anywhere near expected.

At Celtic, Rodgers had long forgotten how to win big matches and still felt confident enough to brand his own team a ‘Honda Civic’ until Hearts sent it crashing into a brick wall. Even then, his remarks about Derek McInnes’ superior side after the match were just so inappropriate.

‘Celtic is a club whose DNA is about playing football and we will never lose that,’ he said. ‘Hearts, you can see, it’s a totally different DNA here. The ball is direct, the supporters love that, it’s a second-ball fight, it’s set-pieces… all that.’

It felt disrespectful. And a bit silly, too. Fulfilling the brief at Celtic is surely about being adaptable, different ways to play, being capable of adjusting within games and doing what it takes to get over the line.

If those at the higher end of the club are to be believed, doing consistently well in Europe is a big part of being Celtic manager too. Rodgers’ reluctance to change his approach led to some horrific whippings in that arena during his first spell.

Second time round, he was more pragmatic, but still failed in the end.

He was preceded, of course, by Ange Postecoglou. His chat was all about how he’d never compromise, how all-out attack was the only way. He also went out of three European competitions in the same season.

Big Ange, of course, could get away with that when scooping up trophies at home. Across at Rangers, though, Martin surely brought a shuddering end to any future obsession with playing the right way and taking care of the ball and each other.

God, it was a shambles. Trying to play the ball out from the back when the players clearly weren’t capable. Giving it away over and over again. And only starting to show signs you might have to rethink things when it was way, way too late.

It felt like the post-traumatic stress still suffered by Rangers fans led to some opposition to the prospect of Danny Rohl coming in. Another ‘supercoach’ type. Alleged remarks by Mehmet Scholl branding him ‘a nuisance with a laptop’ during their time together at Bayern resurfacing.

At his unveiling, though, Rohl put down a very clear marker. Style is not the priority.

‘The first step, and this is the huge one, we need wins in a row,’ said the German. ‘At first, you have to win games. Then, we can speak about playing attractive football.’

And so far, so good. He’s changed the system. There seems to be a bit more attention on set-pieces.

He wants a team based on pressing and intensity, for sure, but Rohl was clear even when managing a Sheffield Wednesday side beset with problems that beating relegation from the English Championship took precedence over everything.

He also seems to understand the need for motivation and man-management married with tactics, something he says he took from his time with Hansi Flick at Bayern. ‘Flick always protected his team,’ he said in an interview with German magazine Kicker. Can that be said of Martin or Rodgers this term?

Football is changing. The era of ‘playing the right way’ looks like it’s ending. Of believing there’s something wrong if everyone isn’t trying to be Pep Guardiola’s Barca or the World Cup-winning Spanish national team.

There’s been a throwing-up of hands over English league-leaders Arsenal scoring so many goals from set-pieces, but so what? They’ve spent years being hammered for being softies. They are evolving. Winning 1-0 through set-plays is becoming popular again.

Tiki-taka is fine if you have Xavi and Iniesta. You could have sent them onto the field on unicycles and they’d still have been able to help you rewrite the playbook.

Almost no one has talent of that ilk, though. Celtic and Rangers certainly don’t have the money to buy them. All through football, all the way down to youth teams still encouraging kids to keep passing out from the back despite being hammered every week, coaches need reprogrammed over death by passing after years of brainwashing.

Only one stat is going to matter at the national stadium and it’s not possession. It’s the scoreline. And the way in which one team overcomes the other doesn’t really matter.

In regard to Europe, you’re never going to outplay teams with bigger wage bills. You need to be organised and have a Plan B. Maybe a C and D as well. A plan to give your gamechangers – because there will *always* be space for them – a chance within a certain structure.

O’Neill won’t be here for long. The proof will be in the pudding with Rohl, particularly with such a huge job to do at a badly performing club with its own disgruntled punters.

However, both, at least, have laid down some important groundrules on their arrivals in Glasgow. Winning is the be-all and end-all with everything else way down the pecking order. As Sunday afternoon will show.