Celtic hero Frank McAvennie has proven to be a rare voice of reason over the comments made by Cameron Carter-Vickers before the international break.
Carter-Vickers was slaughtered by pundits and ex-players for not keeping his frustration in-house after Celtic lost to Rangers for the second time in the space of just a week.
The defender spoke of how Celtic needed a script they could stick to, claiming the team had been taking too 'random' an approach and suggesting it was one of the causes behind a three-game losing streak that developed.
Carter-Vickers also threw his support behind O'Neill and the coaching staff, but even that didn't save him from a public response from O'Neill himself, who issued a strange explanation over the weekend.
But while most pundits and ex-players have decided to pile on Carter-Vickers, McAvennie has taken a different approach.
"I guarantee the coaching is nothing to do with Martin (O'Neill), the coaching is done by Shaun (Maloney) and Fozzy (Mark Fotheringham)," he told the Daily Record. "Martin has never done the coaching.
"If it (the coaching) is not right, it's not right. He never said anything bad."
It's a well-known fact that O'Neill doesn't run sessions, and countless former players of his have testified to that. But even if he did, it's lazy to say Carter-Vickers shouldn't have said anything.
Within his comments, he makes it clear that everything has to improve and includes himself in that. Fans had just witnessed Carter-Vickers and his teammates put on an incredibly flat performance for the second derby within a week.
The least he could offer fans was an honest explanation of what he felt was going wrong. Almost all press conferences and interviews are PR exercises, and Carter-Vickers recognised that it was not a good moment to give a rehearsed answer. Celtic cou;dn't hide behind that performance, and doing so would have only enraged fans further.
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