With eight critical, decisive games left to go, the focus at Nottingham Forest will be on doing everything in their power to make one last push for the play-off places; to give everything they have got to ensure a positive finish to a season that has so far too often been undermined by inconsistency.
But, even as the drama unfolds one way or another, there is another priority to be addressed, as a matter of urgency.
Because the starting point to finding some consistency in the months and years to come, has to be to tie down the future of the most consistent player at the club.
Nottingham Forest have to pull out all the stops, to strike a deal to bring Jack Colback to the club on a permanent basis.
And it is not over stating things to suggest that it could have an influence on the club’s hopes for next season, long before a ball has been kicked.
Between now and May, the Reds must do everything in their power to ensure that the midfielder’s future at the City Ground, is extended beyond the end of this season.
In a poll on the Post website in recent days, two players were miles ahead on votes when it came to who should win the player of the season award.
One was a predictable face, in the form of the electric, incisive figure of Joe Lolley – the man who has been the most creative, dangerous player under both Aitor Karanka and O’Neill.
But the winger’s future has already been doubly secured, with Lolley signing a fresh long-term contract, to replace the long-term deal he already had, in recent months.
The act of putting pen to paper alone is unlikely to completely protect the Reds from Premier League interest in Lolley this summer. But it will, at the very least, ensure that they only have to even contemplate listening to offers for him, if somebody puts truly silly money on the table.
Whereas currently, as things stand, the other key performer in the Forest ranks this season, is only under contract for the duration of those eight games.
And, during that time, O’Neill and the club hierarchy must launch a charm offensive to persuade Colback, for the second consecutive summer, that his future remains at very much at Nottingham Forest – and to reach a deal with his parent club, Newcastle, let him leave.
Colback, unlike Lolley, is not a player who grabs too many headlines – or even too much attention.
Lolley is explosive. He is a player capable of making a match winning impact, in a split second. But if the former Huddersfield man is dynamite, Colback is the kind of player who possesses the spark to light the fuse.
Colback has started 33 of the 38 Championship games this season, missing another three through suspension. Only Lolley, among the outfield players, has started more (34) games.
Generally, if Colback has been fit, he has played. When he was suspended after collecting his fifth booking of the season against Leeds, in October, Forest promptly won the next game 1-0, beating promotion chasing Sheffield United at the City Ground, with a rock solid performance, without the midfielder.
But it said much that, in the next game, regardless, Karanka changed a winning side, to bring Colback back into the fold.
Colback was a consistent, reliable performer in a deep lying role under the Spaniard, when he was almost always one of the two men asked to patrol in front of the back four, within his preferred 4-2-3-1 formation.
Since O’Neill’s appointment, Colback has shown that he is capable of playing in a more advanced role, alongside Ryan Yates, with Pele having been tasked with sitting deep.
Under the Northern Irishman, the 29-year-old has played as more of an orthodox central midfielder, demonstrating that he does have the energy to get box to box – and even to get into the opposing penalty area to provide a bit of attacking threat.
His goal against Aston Villa may not have been as intentional as he jokingly tried to claim, recently, with his cross to the far post having drifted inside the woodwork to deceive the keeper.
But there was an element of Colback being in the right place, at the right time, nevertheless.
The 4-3-3 formation Forest fielded at Ipswich was not negative in approach. Colback and Yates might have been typecast as defensive midfielders, but they are not.
Both get up and down the pitch; both are encouraged to get in and around the box, in support of the forwards.
The issue at Ipswich was not that Forest lacked attacking ambition. It was more simple than that - they just played poorly.
But it is rare for Colback to have a bad game. On that front he has taken on the mantle of Chris Cohen, as a player who could always be relied upon to deliver a 7/10 performance, game in, game out.
O’Neill expects to meet with the club hierarchy during the international break to discuss the future of numerous different players - those who are out of contract, those who are currently on loan at the City Ground and the group who are currently plying their trade at other clubs, on a loan basis.
There will be numerous players to address; several players, even that Forest might well want to keep.
This was one of the reasons why Molla Wague was included in the side at Portman Road – Forest wanted to look at him, to give him an opportunity to impress.
In those remaining eight games, the on-loan Udinese man is likely to have to impressed a great deal, given that Forest will already go into the summer with central defenders Michael Dawson, Tobias Figueiredo, Alexander Milosevic, Yohan Benalouane, Joe Worrall – who has been told he will have a part to play when he returns from Scotland - and Michael Hefele already on their books.
Pele, Diogo Goncalves, Leo Bonatini and Saidy Janko all fall into the same category, as loan players who have shown flashes of ability – to significantly varying degrees, admittedly – but who probably still have work to do, to persuade Forest to attempt to make their moves permanent in the summer.
In Colback’s case, they must surely have seen enough, already.
It is, as Colback himself stated in a hugely honest interview last week, not an entirely black-and-white situation.
He says he would like to stay; he likes playing football for Forest and, just as importantly, his young family are settled in the area. He feels at home on and off the pitch.
There is, equally, no future for him at Newcastle.
But as well as agreeing a deal with the Premier League club, who have him under contract for one more year and will not plan on losing him for nothing, Forest must still persuade Colback that it is the right decision for him to put pen to paper here.
A factor in that will be money.
But, you sense, a bigger factor will be persuading Colback that, at the age of 29, this is the right move for him.
He signed for Forest this season because he believed in their ability to deliver a push for promotion and, potentially, a chance for him to prove himself in the top flight once more, having found himself ostracised by his home town club, under Rafa Benitez.
Colback is likely to be attracting admiring glances from the top flight now, given his performances for Forest.
Even if that only proves to be from teams in the lower half of the table, they will still be able to offer the lure of a seat at the top table; of a chance to prove himself in the most exciting division in world football, while he is at the peak of his career.
Forest’s challenge is to convince him, for the second season running, that they are capable of delivering that opportunity for him themselves, here.
Fittingly, a perfect way to do that, would be to find the kind of consistency, as a team, that Colback delivers as a player – and by doing so, put together a late run to secure a play-off place, in those final eight games.
