O’Neill laughs in face of adversity

CELTIC manager Martin O’Neill yesterday laughed off a cheeky question about his future with the club.

The Scottish champions are in danger of crashing out of Europe after three Champions League Group F defeats to Barcelona, AC Milan and Shakhtar Donetsk.

But it was still a surprise to hear a Ukrainian journalist asking whether he feared the sack if his side failed to beat Donetsk at Parkhead tonight.

“Has he joined our press corp?” asked O’Neill. “He’s obviously been planted by someone.

“I think you can always lose your job,” he added. “That is the precarious nature of it.

“I would hope that if we lost, the board of directors would give me another fortnight to try and sort it out but one never knows in this game.”

O’Neill is concerned about his side’s recent defensive record and the players he has been forced to do without.

Chris Sutton is out but O’Neill is hoping that Henri Camara and Stanislav Varga will be fit.

Celtic suffered a rare home defeat to Aberdeen and almost threw away a two-goal lead at Motherwell in their last two league games and O’Neill admits a similar performance will see them suffer another European defeat.

“I think the build-up to European games always presents certain difficulties,” he added.

“We need to defend better than we have done in recent games and if we are going to concede goals we have to make teams work harder for them than they are at the minute.

“That’s the disappointing aspect. You want to try and cut out those mistakes or suffer the consequences.

“We shouldn’t let that deflect from the fact that we need to try and win the game of football to stay on the European scene and that is enough incentive for us to keep going.”

Celtic need three points at Parkhead tonight to have a realistic hope of staying in Europe, even if it means finishing third to take a consolation UEFA Cup spot.

“To remain in European football we have to try and win the game,” admitted O’Neill.