Martin O’Neill is a master of communication, not one known for falling for loaded questions.
That even applies to Jim White, to whom he became accustomed to accompanying on the radio, prior to being offered an interim return to Celtic.
He joined White and Simon Jordan on Tuesday, phoning into their radio show for a chat mainly about the chaotic events on the pitch at Ibrox after Sunday’s Glasgow Derby.
And as the host looked to congratulate O’Neill on another positive result, he was quick to shut it down.
YOUR IMMEDIATE REACTION TO THAT SHOOTOUT WIN!
Jim White and Celtic boss Martin O’Neill play word tennis
The exchange on talkSPORT went as follows:
White: Martin, I know you well enough to ask you – I want to ask about your achievement in a second…
O’Neill: Please don’t! There’s nothing to talk about in terms of achievements. Seriously, really.
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White: Well, it’s another one you got over your great rivals!
O’Neill: No! No. That’s nice, that’s nice, and yeah, but we still have another game to play them and we have a lot of matches to go, so there’s nothing gained whatsoever.
White: But that’s twice in a week you’ve come back at them, Martin, and you’ve left with the spoils, really.
O’Neill: Yeah. We’ve shown, in the first half, the previous Sunday, we might as well have stayed at Celtic Park. We’re 2-0 down in the game, long long way back at Ibrox. So we showed some fight and spirit, there’s no question about that there.
O’Neill: To come back in the game, and actually dominate proceedings in the second-half which was great, we got out of it at 2-2 and then, we have to come back again. As I said to you, even more intoxicating in many aspects.
O’Neill: And to do it, we had a few setbacks just before the game – we lost Kieran Tierney and we lost Callum McGregor, our captain who has been absolutely inspirational
O’Neill: In fact, I find in the dressing room that he’s doing my job for me, at the end of the day. I’m cheerleading from inside the club!
Celtic’s run of fixtures before the the SPFL split.
How many points are we picking up from these?
Celtic’s remaining fixtures before the split
The toughest of Celtic’s four remaining league fixtures before the split is probably the first, which will see Jens Berthel Askou’s high-flying Motherwell travel to Parkhead off the back of a first league defeat in nine.
The Hoops lost on their last visit to Tannadice under Wilfried Nancy, and will be looking to put that right on their next visit on March 22nd.
They also lost on their last trip to face Dundee at Dens Park – that was the day Brendan Rodgers made his infamous ‘Honda Civic‘ comments. The teams will meet again there on April fifth.
O’Neill’s final fixture before the split will be against St Mirren at Celtic Park on April 11th. As things stand, the Saints haven’t won an away league game since September.
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