Martin O’Neill explains how long it took him to make up his mind to leave Leicester City and join Celtic

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Martin O’Neill will forever be remembered as a Celtic legend for generations to come.

The first Celtic manager to win a treble since the Jock Stein era, O’Neill was also the first Parkhead boss to take the club to a major European final.

The foundations O’Neill set down way back in 2000 have been the basis of the success Celtic fans enjoy to this day.

But when Celtic came calling, O’Neill was the manager of Leicester City. The Irishman has just taken them to 8th in the English Premier League and won the League Cup.

He was a hero in the eyes of the support and had the full respect and running of the club. So when Celtic came calling you would think it would have taken O’Neill quite a bit of time to decide to leave a job where he was basically set for life, right?

O’Neill knew ‘straight away’ when Celtic came calling

Celtic made an approach for Martin O’Neill after the disastrous John Barnes/Kenny Dalglish era. Finishing 21 points behind Dick Advocaat’s Rangers.

Celtic were knocked out of the Scottish Cup in the third round and the only thing the fans had to cheer for was winning the League Cup against Aberdeen 2-0 in March that year.

So when Celtic came calling it was at a time of need and transition so O’Neill could have been forgiven for taking his time. But he didn’t.

O’Neill said [The Football Authorities], “Yeah, I think you should know. I mean, I was away back in the year 2000, I was enjoying life immensely at Leicester City, really enjoying it.

“I know that we had lost Emile Heskey to Liverpool, but we had just won the League Cup, we had just qualified for Europe again, we’d finished in the top ten, and really looking forward.

“And I felt it was really my club, because at that stage, all the shenanigans at the boardroom level, I’d been able to sort out.

“And now suddenly I was running the football club, which was great, which is what I wanted to do, and the opportunity came up to manage Celtic and it was a dilemma at the time.

“You know, a long time to think about leaving Leicester and, maybe almost paradoxically, to say that it took about two seconds to make your mind up by going to Celtic.

“Well, the whole point about knowing straight away is that the fact is that I possibly didn’t. You know, because I was loving life at Leicester at the time.”

The Celtic fans will forever be grateful that O’Neill took over the club. Were it not for him, they would not have seen the likes of Chris Sutton, John Hartson and Alan Thompson grace the green and white Hoops.

It is also unlikely that Seville would have happened or the seven trophies he helped to deliver.

O’Neill also delivered some incredible European nights at Celtic Park where the likes of Juventus, Liverpool and Lyon were sent packing.