Martin O'Neill admits he was surprised to get a warm reception from Celtic fans today following the LASK disappointment.
Supporters were raging at the team's capitulation against the Austrian side midweek, somehow managing to crash out of the Champions League after taking a three goal lead into the second leg before actually extending that to four.
Plenty of criticism has followed as Celtic missed out on the league phase yet again.
But they got back on track with a win over Falkirk today, and even before the game O'Neill noticed a positive reaction from the crowd upon arrival at the stadium.
Speaking post-match, he said: "Well, do you know, as we got off the bus, the crowd actually cheered us, you know, which was unexpected and something that we probably didn't deserve. So, yeah, I was really pleased."
Luke McCowan was one of the players to bear the brunt of the heat following Tuesday night, but he was given a warm ovation as he came on as a sub today.
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Asked about that, O'Neill added: "Was there? I don't know where I was at that stage. My head had gone.
"Well, that was nice if that's the case, you know, really nice. But as I said, getting off the bus, the team, we got we got clapped, which was one I wasn't expecting, I genuinely didn't think we deserved it."
The manager was pleased with the response he got from his players this afternoon.
Asked if he was satisfied, he said: "Yeah, it's been a tough old four days for us. And yeah, it was a big concern today, just physically, the 120 minutes, the disappointment of losing and the psychological aspect of all of that there.
"But it was a response, it was a good response today. And we missed a lot of great chances to wrap the game up.
"I always felt that Falkirk were never out of it at 2-0, as it so proved. So just to win the game today, it was great. I would be disappointed if we had dropped points from the number of chances that we created. We were in the back foot the last 10 or 15 minutes of the game, naturally, because of the goal that we conceded."
