O'Neill - It's victory or bust at Ibrox

Celtic manager Martin O’Neill has told his UEFA Cup heroes that nothing less than a win against Rangers will be good enough on Sunday.

The Hoops boss was still elated just hours after returning from Portugal, where his players sensationally defeated Boavista to progress to the UEFA Cup final.

Now Celtic must put all thoughts of European football to the back of their minds until they meet Porto in Seville on May 21 as they attempt to put a dent in Rangers’ challenge for the Bank of Scotland Premier League championship.

Alex McLeish’s men sit eight points clear at the top of the ble, although the Hoops still have a game in hand, and O’Neill admits his side will have little chance of holding onto the title this season if Celtic fail to take all three points at Ibrox on Sunday.

He said: “We have to win the game because of the points we dropped against Hearts and Dundee.

“Rangers still have to go to both of those places, which will be very difficult, but I would say that a draw is of no use to us now.

“It wouldn’t matter if there was nothing at stake – both teams still want to win – but there is everything at stake.

“We have to win, Rangers maybe don’t have to win, but there will be blood and thunder.”

O’Neill was vehemently opposed to playing Rangers so soon after their trip to Portugal and he knows there will be a lot of weary legs in the dressing room following his players exertions against Boavista.

But he has warned his squad that they must be ready to take on Rangers no matter what – and reckons their European success has given Celtic the edge over Rangers.

He added: “Regardless of how the players are feeling, they have to get on with it.

“There are a couple of players who aren’t feeling the best in terms of injury, but they feel good within themselves and we’ll just have to wait and see how they are shaping up.

“The rest of the players will have to be ready – there is nothing else for it because it is a big, big game.

“The adrenalin, as much as anything else, will see us through it and that will give us a head start because we won the game and didn’t lose it.

“Can you imagine going to Ibrox if we had lost that game? I don’t think Boavista were the best team in the tournament and we would have been disappointed if we hadn’t got past them.”

Celtic’s progression to the final of the UEFA Cup came when Henrik Larsson netted 11 minutes from time, to prevent their Portuguese opponents going through on the away goals rule.

O’Neill admits he can not bring himself to watch the entire nerve-wracking 90 minutes again, but he paid tribute to his players for getting this far.

He said: “It still hasn’t sunk in yet and I’m getting too long in the tooth to take these things in my stride, but it has been really terrific.

“I watched the last 15 minutes again, from when we scored right through to the four minutes of injury time.

“Putting myself through that again almost gave me an extra heart attack, so I think just watching those 15 minutes is enough, instead of the whole game.

“It’s a great feeling and I can’t quite describe it properly.

“A couple of seasons ago it looked a long way off. We were well behind Rangers and they had almost dismissed us and quite rightly so, but we’ve done fine.”

Celtic have disposed of teams from the Barclaycard Premiership, the Bundesliga and La Liga on their way to the final in Seville and O’Neill now hopes Scottish football has earned the respect of clubs around the continent.

He said: “The couple of games against Blackburn and Liverpool gave us some renewed standing within the British game.

“There is a feeling down south that everyone isn’t rushing to play in Scottish football.

“I felt we got a bit of respect from those games and we have taken that on another step by reaching the final.

“It has helped us immensely and I think the teams that we played in the UEFA Cup have respect for us as well.”