Once the initial shock at his return passed, many Celtic fans will have been pleased to see the club legend return.<\/p>\n
The Celtic powerbrokers, who have been engulfed in heat from the fans, knew what they were doing with this one. <\/p>\n
O’Neill was even able to tip Hearts for the title – and stand by his prediction – and not have his reputation tarnished. <\/p>\n
Even if things hadn’t gone to script on Sunday – or at any stage during his interim tenure – his place in club folklore is fixed. But a semi-final victory against Rangers has certainly lifted spirits. <\/p>\n
Supporters sought out the songbook from two decades ago and serenaded him at the national stadium. It was just another surreal moment in a surreal week. <\/p>\n
O’Neill doesn’t have the same calibre of player to call upon as he did in his first spell. There is no Lubo Moravcik, no Neil Lennon, no Henrik Larsson. <\/p>\n
But there is a group of players keen to prove their worth.<\/p>\n
Outside of the aforementioned Callum McGregor and Kieran Tierney, the four others involved in Celtic’s goals – scorers Johnny Kenny and Callum Osmand – who has been advised to “get a couple DVDs of the Swede” – and providers Arne Engels and Auston Trusty – were latterly not favoured by Rodgers.<\/p>\n
Whether O’Neill sticks around for the final or not, he has at worst provided a path for players who otherwise might have been rocking up suited and booted and seated in the stands. <\/p>\n
On that note of attire, the final mention in this mad week must go to O’Neill’s matchday fit.<\/p>\n
The sight of him adorning an Adidas Originals tracksuit on the touchline was as surprising as anything else out of Parkhead this week.<\/p>\n
“The other tracksuit was really tight nylon,” explained O’Neill of what he wore against Falkirk. “I looked like Robin Hood!”<\/p>\n
A vintage look for a vintage manager, who might just be breaking out the shirt and tie and circling 14 December on the calendar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Once the initial shock at his return passed, many Celtic fans will have been pleased to see the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-240501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}