Celtic players get timely boost, says O’Neill

CELTIC manager Martin O’Neill claimed yesterday that his players had been given a timely boost from Tuesday night’s results in Europe.

The Scottish champions enjoyed victories over Juventus, Porto, Ajax, Rosenborg and Valencia during last season’s thrilling campaign. But they have since been reeling from missing out on a return to the Champions League after their amazing collapse against FC Basle.

However, the Celtic boss feels that his players can take confidence from the fact that the Swiss side, Valencia and Rosenborg, all enjoyed good nights as they embark on a UEFA Cup adventure starting with Lithuanians FK Suduva at Parkhead tonight. ‘‘I suppose last night’s results in European football in many ways gave us a bit of a boost,’’ explained O’Neill.

‘‘Valencia played here last season and we beat them in normal time and they absolutely pulverised Liverpool; Rosenborg were touted as non-descript but they came back to draw with Inter Milan. Basle also won and they could have won 5-0 and I knew they were decent when we played them. They showed they were no pushovers.’’

But O’Neill believes that Rangers’ shock 2-0 defeat to Viktoria Zizkov proves that nothing is a foregone conclusion in Europe. Little is known of the Lithuanian outfit, but the same could be said for Rangers’ Czech opponents. But the ambitious Celtic boss is confident that his players will not underestimate the threat of Suduva.

O’Neill added: ‘‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again that our attitude has got to be spot-on for these matches. I’m hoping it is. We got a poor start against Basle, which eventually had a big bearing on the game.

‘‘They scored within the first 60 seconds of the match and that gave them confidence to go on and they displayed last night that they are not to be trifled with. I have never treated any team lightly as a manager and I didn’t do as a player. They went through because they were better than us.’’

O’Neill has certainly done his homework and he will make sure his stars are made aware of the Suduva danger men. The minnows stunned Norwegian side SK Brann with a 6-4 aggregate win in the qualifying round, but the Celtic boss is confident his players will avoid disaster and book their place in the second round.

‘‘We have done everything possible on them,’’ admitted O’Neill.

‘‘We have watched them play and we have tapes of their previous games. We know as much as possible and we know that they cannot be treated lightly whatsoever as they showed against Brann.”