Martin O'Neill

Still our best manager in my lifetime imo, he gave us back our pride as a club and set the benchmark for all these successive years of trophies. Absolutely adore the man he is a Celtic legend.

 

Fergus McCann set the foundations off the field for where we are today and on the field it was Martin O'Neill who set the stage and was the opening for an incredible last 2 decades of success with so many records along the way and hopefully more just around the corner.

 

Hard to argue with that..

Had everything..

 

On the Sportsound Podcast

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08h3gcm

 

http://www.thecelticwiki.com/m/page/2000-07-09:+Bray+Wanderers+2-3+Celtic,+Friendly

20 years ago today MON took charge of his first Celtic game, a 3-2 win over Bray Wanderers in Dublin with Tommy Johnson scoring a hat trick.

This game is famous for MON tearing Rafael Scheidt a new one at half time for being absolutely honking.

 

https://www.skysports.com/football/...er-celtic-boss-on-his-adventure-with-the-club

It was not easy turning it around,” Martin O’Neill tells Sky Sports. “I think people think this. Celtic had only won one championship in the previous dozen or so years. When you see Celtic’s domination now, I think it really started from our turnaround twenty years ago.”

He is right. As Celtic prepare to chase that hallowed tenth title in a row, their dominance has become the norm. Supporters have seen Brendan Rodgers guide the club to back-to-back trebles, while Neil Lennon’s win percentage during his second spell is at a record high.

But such a grip over Scottish football seemed unfathomable at the turn of the century. The biggest achievement of the previous decade had been ending Rangers’ run of titles at nine. Embarking on their own such sequence appeared all but impossible back then.

O’Neill changed the mood. He not only won the title but retained it. Not only restored pride but reignited passions, taking Celtic on a long-awaited journey back to a European final.

The man who reversed the momentum is proud of the accomplishment.

Even if he did not see it coming.




O’Neill had shown promise at Wycombe Wanderers and beaten the odds at Leicester City. He had some silverware as a manager and pedigree as a player. But this was different.

Celtic was an institution. He was welcomed as a fellow supporter but any optimism that he felt at his unveiling was soon tempered by the strength of the club’s Glasgow rivals.

“I must admit, it was only when I got there that I realised how strong Rangers were,” says O’Neill. “I had stepped into a club that had been well beaten in the league in the previous year and we are talking about a club that had world-class players in their team.

“They had Ronald de Boer. They had Stefan Klos, who was a European Cup winner with Borussia Dortmund. They had Lorenzo Amoruso and Jorg Albertz. They had Michael Mols, who was a really good centre-forward with terrific technique.”




Celtic had just finished 21 points adrift of Rangers.

The adventures on the continent that would come to define his reign were a distant dream when O’Neill arrived. “My first European game was a qualifying match against a team from Luxembourg,” he recalls. “That was my introduction. That is how poor they had been.”

It was not obvious that Celtic had strengthened dramatically either. The club had lost Mark Viduka that summer with the Australian striker joining Leeds United after finishing as the top scorer in Scotland during the previous season. O’Neill used it to his advantage.

“Viduka leaving allowed me to buy Chris Sutton which helped immensely,” he explains. “He was a brilliant partner for Henrik Larsson so that worked out terrifically.”






Larsson had missed much of the previous season through injury after breaking his leg in two places in October 1999. At 28, there were doubts whether he would ever scale the heights that he had reached before but those soon went away.

He was spectacular under O’Neill.

Indeed, the Swede would go on to enjoy his best season in front of goal – finding the net 53 times and winning the European Golden Shoe in recognition of his 35 league goals.

“Henrik was in fantastic form that particular season,” says O’Neill before quickly correcting himself. “Sorry, he was in fantastic form every season that we had him.”

Larsson’s new strike partner proved the perfect foil.

“He really loved playing with Chris Sutton,” adds O’Neill.

“Sutton was a top-class player, there was no doubt about it. He had won the title in England with Blackburn Rovers. Going forward we became much more potent then.”




It was not just Sutton.

The key was that O’Neill constructed a team that brought the best out in their star player.

“I think Henrik would be the first one to agree with that. I signed Alan Thompson from Aston Villa. Didier Agathe came for £50,000 from Hibs. He was brilliant for us.

“I think what we did is that we gave Henrik more weaponry than he had ever had before. Thompson crossing from the one side and Didier Agathe on the other side.”




If there was a game in those early months that symbolised the power shift it was the sensational 6-2 win over Rangers at Celtic Park in late August.

O’Neill had described Rangers as the benchmark beforehand, but Celtic were brilliant with Sutton and Larsson scoring two each – including a gorgeous chipped finish by the latter.

It became known as the demolition derby and dramatically altered the mood.



Although it is often forgotten that Rangers won 5-1 in the reverse fixture at Ibrox, that really was a blip – the only league match that Celtic lost before clinching the title.

“The team was starting to emerge and it was starting to get strong,” says O’Neill.

“We had an emerging young talent in Stiliyan Petrov and I signed Neil Lennon at Christmas time. Although we had already been going strongly, he was terrific for us.

“Much is made of Neil’s character and that is true but he was also an exceptionally good footballer. Neil could have sat there playing in midfield for any of the top teams playing in the Premier League in England at that time. There is no question about that.”



Celtic went on to win the treble that season, the club’s first since the Jock Stein successes of the 1960s. O’Neill then became the first Celtic manager to retain the title since Billy McNeill.

Even for a boyhood fan it was an eye-opening experience.

“I must admit it took a little bit of time. It took a while for the realisation to sink in. The way that we galvanised ourselves. They were magical days, there is no question about that.






If the success of those first two seasons offered an insight into the size of Celtic, it was the third season – and a run to a European final – that confirmed it. The memories resonate.

“It is interesting because the great Celtic team won the European Cup in 1967, that was a fantastic side and because it was the European Cup it is considered the best team ever.

“But strangely enough, Celtic’s journey to Seville tends to get talked about more than Celtic’s second European Cup final when we got beaten by Feyenoord in 1970. Maybe it is because it is more recent but it is certainly much talked about.”




They say that the journey is as important as the destination and in this case it was Celtic’s route to Seville that provided much of the joy that season.

O’Neill’s men triumphed over Blackburn and Liverpool on their way to the final. The victory over the former, led by former Rangers boss Graeme Souness was particularly pleasing.


Even after Celtic won 1-0 in the first leg in Glasgow, Souness reportedly told his players that it had been men against boys and declared that if the Scottish champions could score one goal then his side would be able to score three in front of their own fans at Ewood Park.

Instead, Larsson was on target again as Celtic scored two more for a 3-0 aggregate win.

Had they been underestimated by their English opponents?

“I think that’s exactly right,” says O’Neill. “That is the nail on the head. Blackburn were flying high themselves at that time. It should have been a bit of a warning to the Premier League.”

The warning was not heeded.


Tight victories over Celta Vigo and Stuttgart set up a quarter-final meeting with Liverpool. A 1-1 draw at home left Celtic needing to do something special at Anfield.

O’Neill’s speech in the dressing room beforehand is the stuff of legend as he told his players they would never have an opportunity like this again. It was about earning respect.

“By the time he had finished we were ready to go out and run through brick walls,” Lennon would later claim. O’Neill is typically reluctant to talk up its impact himself.

“So they tell me,” he says. “But that’s for them to say.”



Thompson’s free-kick followed by a fine strike from John Hartson decided the tie.

“To win at Anfield at any time was special but to knock them out of Europe was really something.”



Victory over Boavista secured their date in Seville and a final against Jose Mourinho’s Porto. It was a classic final in which Celtic twice came from behind to take the game to extra time.

Bobo Balde’s red card tilted the odds against O’Neill’s side and there was a cruel finale as Derlei’s 115th-minute winner denied Celtic their moment of glory in the Spanish heat.





Porto’s antics that evening antagonised many.

“The play-acting and time-wasting seriously tainted their victory,” said Celtic legend Billy McNeill in the immediate aftermath of the defeat. “Their behaviour was shocking.”

O’Neill contemplates his response all these years on.

“I would agree with those sentiments,” he says quietly.


But the overriding emotion now is one of pride. Celtic had been underestimated again, this time by the authorities who had not anticipated the tens of thousands who would make the journey out to Seville for a match that was played on a Wednesday evening.

“That is madness,” said security chief Rafael Carmona when there was talk of 50,000 supporters making the trip to southern Spain. “How many fans do Celtic have?”

Even more than that as it turned out.

“There were 75,000 Celtic fans who descended on Seville," says O'Neill. "The stadium could not take them but they just wanted to make the journey. If anybody had ever doubted the scale of support for that football club they only had to be in Seville for that evening. It was unbelievable.

“Porto went on to win the European Cup the following year but we should have won. It was a shame. I just wish now we had been able to win the game. But people still talk of it as one of the great journeys they made. It is much revered even though we lost the game.”





O’Neill stayed on for two more seasons as Celtic and Rangers traded titles.

“The rivalry between Celtic and Rangers is one of the major rivalries in world football let alone European football,” he says.

“It is a way of life for people up there. So it is constant. It is in your face all the time and there is nothing wrong with that. If you are winning, it is great.”

Since leaving in 2005, his trips back have been sporadic. He largely resists sentiment.

“Stiliyan Petrov had a charity event after his illness and he invited me there to manage the team, but I have not been back too often. The torch passes on. But whenever I have been back I have been treated very well, which is nice.”





Warm memories, then.

And the feeling of satisfaction that he was the catalyst for something special.

But warm memories of time at a club – feeling that he was catalyst for something special

“The Celtic experience is unforgettable it really is,” he concludes. “To manage a football club of that size and to be successful with it. To live every moment with it all. It was just an unforgettable experience.

"Celtic is a very special football club.”

 

That brought back so many memories

 

Celtic were a broken club in the first half of 2000. They were beaten by part-timers Inverness Caledonian Thistle in the Scottish Cup, a defeat which prompted the Mary Poppins-themed headline: ‘Super Caley go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious’.

They were way off the pace in the Scottish Premier League, finishing 21 points behind Rangers.


Then Martin O’Neill took over. Striker Mark Viduka, holidaying in Australia at the time, told his new manager he wanted to leave.



Fine,’ said O’Neill, who sold Viduka to Leeds for £6million and used the money to sign Chris Sutton. In their first season together, Celtic won the domestic Treble, finishing 15 points ahead of Rangers to be crowned champions.

Two decades on, Sportsmail got the pair back together. O’Neill, now a 68-year-old grandfather whose last job saw him back at Nottingham Forest with assistant Roy Keane for just 19 games, reveals he is not finished with football. KIERAN GILL listened in.

CHRIS SUTTON: I couldn’t actually sleep last night Martin because I was nervous about doing this interview. I don’t think I’ve ever asked you a question.

MARTIN O’NEILL: You have. When I was signing you for Celtic, you asked if you could have the same wages as you were on at Chelsea!



O’NEILL: Viduka thought I was going to get down on my knees and say, ‘Please stay with us’. He went on to have a great career. But you got the best out of Henrik Larsson. You took him to another level.

Our opening game was at Dundee United and so superior had Rangers been the previous year, I was asked by a journalist beforehand: ‘If you don’t win today, is that the league over?’ It was incredible. They didn’t expect Rangers to drop too many points! That was some pressure but Henrik opened the scoring, then you grabbed a late winner for us.

SUTTON: Was it a risk joining Celtic? You were at Leicester for five years.

O’NEILL: I got a telephone call from Sir Alex Ferguson to ask if I’d take a call from Dermot Desmond (Celtic’s major shareholder). Dermot and I didn’t know each other at all. But I was interviewed for the job and knew within seconds I wanted to join Celtic.


As a player, O’Neill won the European Cup twice under the great Brian Clough for Forest, before representing Manchester City, Norwich and Notts County. As a manager, he got his start in 1990 with non-League Wycombe Wanderers, who were recently promoted to the second tier for the first time in their history.




SUTTON: Was becoming a manager always in your mind?

O’NEILL: No. Never. I was always good at giving advice to others and not taking it myself. I remember asking John O’Hare, a great centre forward for Derby who came to Forest towards the end of his career, ‘What are you going to do?’ I should have been asking myself that.

SUTTON: I suspect Clough had an influence on you as a manager.

O’NEILL: Clough was the most charismatic manager in England, maybe Europe. He was unpredictable, volatile, mercurial — every adjective you want to use. He’d say something to us on Monday, contradict himself on Friday, but I’d believe both of them. As a manager, it would be difficult not to have taken a lot from him.





SUTTON: Was he approachable?

O’NEILL: I picture this scene where Cloughie would come down the corridor at the City Ground. There was a little washroom which was badly lit and the door was always open. Larry Lloyd, who was a big lad, would dip into that room to disappear so Cloughie could have a free run down the corridor. But when you got that praise from him, you felt a million dollars. I never asked anybody for advice after becoming a manager. If I was going to ask anybody, I’d have asked him. But I’d have known Brian’s answer: ‘Get on with it yourself, young man.’

SUTTON: Tell me about Wycombe.

O’NEILL: I’d gone for an interview with them in 1988 and failed. But I was doing commentary for an FA Cup match between Liverpool and Norwich at Carrow Road and met Alan Parry, the commentator who was also on the board at Wycombe. They were interviewing for the job. Alan later called me to say it had been given to Kenny Swain. But Kenny turned it down the following morning! Wycombe had plans to become a Football League team and I got the chance to take them there.

SUTTON: How did you apply for jobs back then? Did you have an agent?

O’NEILL: I’ve never had an agent. I wrote hand-crafted letters which I thought were funny and good, but they were obviously thrown in the bin! Chesterfield, Mansfield, Stockport… I wasn’t even getting a reply. On one occasion I got a reply from Bradford City after Trevor Cherry had lost his job in 1987 but they were concerned about me being a novice. At Wycombe, it all changed for me. I loved that club and I still do. It’s great to see young Gareth Ainsworth doing so brilliantly.

O’NEILL: I think he would have found that difficult! Jock Stein, the greatest manager Celtic have ever had, would have found that difficult. Bill Shankly, Don Revie — all of these people would have found it difficult. But you have to adapt. This idea that managers of a certain vintage don’t want to change is utterly untrue. You have to adapt, otherwise you go under.

I was in charge at Leicester, at Celtic, at Aston Villa, where the chairman of the club was Randy Lerner, whose father had owned the Cleveland Browns. He wanted to make his own mark on football and thought there were parallels between Cleveland and Birmingham.

He felt Villa was a club he could do something with, and he put me in charge.

But at Sunderland and Forest, I was absolutely not in charge because other people wanted to run the clubs.

Manchester United legend Keane was not one to shirk a tackle and he can be just as cutting in the Sky Sports studio. But none of what Keane says surprises O’Neill. Keane was his assistant for five years with the Republic of Ireland before joining him at Forest last year.




SUTTON: I was with Roy for two weeks at Celtic. I didn’t say much to him in case he ripped my head off. People think he has a short fuse and can be wild. Is that perception fair?

O’NEILL: I’d say that perception would be pretty well correct.

SUTTON: Then why have him as your assistant?

O’NEILL: We’d done some work together on TV. He divided opinion as a player with the national team, particularly that incident in Saipan ahead of the 2002 World Cup when he walked out after a fight with Mick McCarthy.

But he’d been a fantastic footballer and an iconic figure. He was a driving force for Manchester United and he didn’t just drive them on for a year — he did it for a decade.

Overall we felt we could come in and resurrect Ireland. We qualified for Euro 2016, beating the world champions Germany along the way. Roy had his own opinions which he didn’t mind forcing through and that’s fine.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a great journey. In the media, you and Roy both have a good, caustic sense of humour. Roy is always worth listening to.


O’Neill spent only 164 days in charge of Forest, the club where he made 371 appearances in midfield. It felt like fate to get the job. But on June 28, 2019, O’Neill’s sacking was confirmed. Just 18 minutes later, Sabri Lamouchi was announced as his successor.

O’NEILL: I hadn’t even left my dressing room by the time the new manager was announced. They obviously had a plan in place, so good luck to them.

SUTTON: Was there a romantic element to taking over at Forest? You don’t seem the type.

O’NEILL: I can’t believe you and I worked together and you’ve got me so wrong. You think I’m logical when I’m totally illogical, and I’m utterly romantic about the game. I thought I could turn Forest around. If I thought I was only going to get 19 games, then I wouldn’t have done it.


In my one week of pre-season, I signed Sammy Ameobi on a free transfer. Arguably he and Ben Watson have been their two best players this season.

SUTTON: Forest blew it on the Championship’s final day, missing out on a play-off position on goal difference. I can’t help wonder where you might have taken them. Did you feel let down?

O’NEILL: To only get 19 games was disappointing. It was no time at all. I’ve spent longer on a sponsored walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats than I did as manager of that football club!

SUTTON: There was an accusation that you aren’t a training-ground manager. I know what I think of that. How do you respond?

O’NEILL: I remember as a young player walking from the City Ground to the training ground with the Forest youth team coach, Bert Johnson. He told me: ‘If you get a reputation for being an early riser, you can lie in bed all day.’ That’s absolutely true.

What happens in life is certain labels are bandied around and they stick. Clough was never considered to be a training-ground coach, yet he was one of the greatest. He made points which stood the test of time, like telling full backs the first job they have to do is shut the winger down. Or prevent him for as long as possible from crossing the ball, then at least it gives the centre backs a chance to recover.

I improved players who wanted to improve and I had a great eye for a player. That wasn’t a fluke.

When I was at Wycombe, I was on the road the whole time. I had my daughters doing their homework in a social club at VS Rugby because I’m watching them play. I saw Muzzy Izzet play every second Monday night at Kingstonian for Chelsea’s reserves. I did the miles. I did the work.

SUTTON: One final question. Are you finished in football or are you ready to get back in?

O’NEILL: I’ve got a real zest and great enthusiasm for the game. I have no doubt I will be back in some capacity.

 

Canny believe he’s 68 man time does go on always thought he would be back after leaving in 2005 I guess spiritually he is with Lennon being manager


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He was brilliant yesterday..

What a guy..

 

Just watched this game on Celtic tv the other day.


Always loved the reaction from Martin

 

Thought he was brilliant the other day on sky always comes across really well gave it good to boyd aswell and put him in his place a few times! Also kinda confirmed the pish that Lennon supposedly quit and not sacked to bed aswell stumbled a bit when he said he was sacked then changed it straight away to left by mutual consent like we all knew and thought all along

 

Wish he would shut the * up about Keane

 

Big up your mates until they get the job, the Celtic way.

 

Love the guy. Felt like we could beat anyone when he was manager.

 

https://thesmmediaent.wordpress.com...ls-celtic-signings-from-worst-to-best-part-1/

 

Owned Barry Fergushun over the ice incident, lol.

For me the best manager we've had in my lifetime supporting the Hoops.