Martin O’Neill has revealed his five best and single worst signings when manager of Celtic.
O’Neill arrived as boss in 2000 at a time when Rangers had just won the SPL by a large margin, their second title in a row.
John Barnes was the previous manager and it’s safe to say he goes down as one of Celtic’s worst bosses of all time.
O’Neill, however, transformed Celtic into a winning machine thanks to some excellent recruitment over his five year spell.
So in 2025, who does the Northern Irishman rank as his five best Celtic signings, and also his worst?
O’Neill’s five best Celtic signings as boss
He told the Daily Record that Chris Sutton, Joos Valgaeren, Alan Thompson, Didier Agathe and Neil Lennon stand out.
O’Neill explained: “I was able to get Chris Sutton to the football club at the time. So we rolled over the money from Mark Viduka to Chris Sutton. Chris was a really good player.
“Had a tough time at Chelsea, but rejuvenated himself at Celtic, and had this great partnership with Henrik Larsson. So Chris Sutton was terrific.
“And Chris Sutton coming to the football club at the time he did was really important for me. Because if he had arrived six weeks later, we might not have had the start to the season that we did.
“So by the time that we played Rangers, maybe fifth or sixth game into the season, we’d won the previous matches. I’m not so sure that we might have won all those games without Chris.
“I signed Joos Valgaeren, really good player, Belgian, very, very quick. I signed Alan Thompson.
“I signed Didier Agathe, who was fantastic for me, absolutely fantastic. Strange enough, for £50,000 – £50,000! So if you’re talking about pound-for-pound signing, that was enormous, really.
“But a lot of good players came. Neil Lennon came at around Christmas time.”
O’Neill singles out Juninho as his worst Celtic recruit
He was also asked about his biggest signing mistake, and that was Brazilian star Juninho from Middlesbrough.
O’Neill admitted: “In terms of worst signings, actually funnily enough, I actually signed a Brazilian player, Juninho, who had been wonderful for Middlesbrough, really terrific footballer for Middlesbrough.
“In fact, I had to man-mark him in the 1997 League Cup final for Middlesbrough versus Leicester because he had destroyed us a couple of weeks earlier in a league game at Filbert Street.
“So he was a really good player. But by the time that I’d signed him, he had been at Middlesbrough, I think three times, you know, back and forward. So he had lost the edge. He was no longer the player he was.
“And I suppose maybe I thought that for periods we could actually rejuvenate him, but it never really materialised.
“But we didn’t pay any money for him at the end of the day. He came on a free transfer. And in truth, I think that his great days had certainly passed by that time.”
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