Martin O'Neill's future at Celtic continues to be a topic of discussion. Considering we are still in September, this is far from ideal and the last thing the fans would have expected coming into the season. 

That being said, when your team loses three games on the trot, with two coming at the hands of their Glasgow rivals, the Rangers, those questions should not come as any surprise. Potential replacements are already being suggested by the media.

O'Neill knows well that Celtic managers need to produce results in order to remain in the Parkhead job. Right now, his team are not doing that.

But even more importantly, at 74 years of age, he might not want to continue on if he feels that the task is beyond him or it could negatively affect his legacy with the fanbase.

Another reason might be that O'Neill might not be exactly happy with how things were handled by the Celtic board this summer.

According to Graham Spiers (via Conor Byline), O’Neill was left increasingly frustrated by Celtic’s recruitment during the summer. Several of his targets failed to arrive. The Northern Irish manager was not happy with the timing of Arne Engels’ departure either, or the failure to properly replace him.

O’Neill is thought to have felt a bad vibe at Celtic from the moment the club began wrangling over Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham’s salaries.

Spiers also adds that O’Neill’s recent bout of ill-health has not helped matters, while questioning whether the Celtic manager is still enjoying the job. The suggestion has been made that the Northern Irishman's time at the club may be numbered.

It remains to be seen if the reporting is accurate or not. But one can certainly see why this might very well be the case.

Once again, Celtic ended up weakening the squad over the summer. And that directly resulted in them missing out on Champions League qualification.

If the club had brought in quality signings in time, perhaps the story would have been very different, and they would have qualified. But they did not.

Unfortunately, this is a cycle. The missed Champions League qualification means that they won't get that financial boost and did not end up bringing in enough quality in the remainder of the window.

At some point, the Hoops will need to make their moves before the qualifiers rather than waiting to secure qualification and then deciding on their budget.