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.
Celtic manager Martin O’Neill (left) and Chris Sutton recieve the Bank of Scotland Premier league Manager of the Month Award and Player of the Month Award for January 2005
‘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!
SUTTON: You resurrected my career with that move.
Sutton describes his transfer to Celtic in July 2000 as the move which ‘resurrected his career’
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.
Martin O’Neill shakes hands with former Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough
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.
O’Neill reflects on past glories at Nottingham Forest with Brian Clough in 1997
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 poses for a photo in the dressing room at Adams Park, home of Wycombe Wanderers
SUTTON: In those days, the manager would be completely in charge of the club. What would Cloughie have made of the game these days with directors of football and chief executives?
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.
O’Neill patrols the touchline at the City Ground with his assistant Roy Keane in 2019
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!
O’Neill was given just 19 matches as Forest boss before being sacked in June 2019
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.