Former Celtic boss Martin O’Neill has no doubts he would not have been able to achieve so much success at the club without Chris Sutton. Irishman O’Neill guided the Hoops to a memorable Scottish Premiership and Scottish Cup treble in his time at Celtic Park.
And the 70-year-old, who managed the club for five prosperous years, saw Sutton and fellow striker Henrik Larsson form a formidable goalscoring partnership. "Chris Sutton was a landscape-changer for me,” stressed O’Neill on the Sacked in the Morning podcast . “He was super, really super.
“Maybe I should have told him that a wee bit more often. He had an instant rapport with Henrik Larsson, both on and off the pitch. They were really great. Sutton had been a brilliant player with Alan Shearer at Blackburn, but he was one of those players who genuinely didn’t mind who got the goal. They really hit it off and Sutton. Don’t get me wrong, he can be a bit of a tw*t at times, but he was fantastic. I don’t think we could have had the success we did have without him being there.”
Sutton bagged 86 goals in 199 appearances over six seasons at Celtic, while Swedish hitman Larsson netted an incredible 242 goals in 221 games for the club in a seven-year spell in Glasgow. O’Neill sold star striker Mark Viduka to Leeds United for £6million as soon as he took charge after the Australian international wanted to have after a dispute with the club.
He spent the money on Sutton – and admits it was one of the best decisions of his decorated managerial career. "I didn’t really look at the squad before I took the Celtic,” admitted O’Neill, who also enjoyed managerial spells with the Republic of Ireland, Leicester City, Aston Villa, Wycombe Wanderers, Sunderland and Norwich City.
But O’Neill’s time as Hoops boss is his most successful as a manager. He added: Funnily enough my first conversation was with Mark Viduka. Mark was a really exceptional player and I rang him to see if he was going to play for us because he was still under contract. But he’d had a spat with someone and so we sold him to Leeds United and turned over the money to sign Chris Sutton. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. And Henrik Larsson was just terrific as well. He could be aloof at times, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I invented the word, but seriously he was totally focused. But the great thing about him was that you could always rely on him. You just need people who can turn the game for you – and Sutton and Larsson could do that for you.”
O’Neill guided Leicester to the First Division and twice won the League Cup, but he revealed an unexpected call from Sir Alex Ferguson persuaded him to put his hat in the ring for Celtic job. I was loving my time at Leicester. We’d had a good start to the season and we’d just won the League Cup. And even though Emile Heskey had just signed for Liverpool, we were going to use the money to buy some players in the summer.
“But suddenly I then get a call from Sir Alex Ferguson. He said to me would I take call from Dermot Desmond, the main shareholder at Celtic. He told me that I was one of a shortlist of people he’d like to speak too. I said ‘absolutely’. You start by thinking you want to change the world, but if I’d realised how strong Rangers were, actually then I might have just stayed at Leicester. But when I came up Celtic I realised how massive a club it was. Until I got to Glasgow I didn’t grasp how much the club meant to everyone.
“I had a fair idea, but I probably didn’t really know. It was almost overwhelming. Naturally because of where I was born in Northern Ireland, as an Irish Catholic, there was always going to be a decent chance I’d be supporting Celtic.
“My father used to say to me ‘if you ever get a chance to play for Celtic, then take it. Take it with both hands’.
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