Martin O’Neill confident Celtic will ‘compete properly’ in Europe again

Martin O’Neill has predicted Celtic will make a European comeback and “compete properly” again.

O’Neill and fellow interim manager Shaun Maloney led the Scottish champions to their first away win in Europe in four years when Celtic came from behind to beat Feyenoord on Thursday.

The 73-year-old is set to bow out after Sunday’s Premiership encounter with Hibernian at Easter Road and will leave Celtic with a chance of progression in the Europa League.

The former European Cup winners have seven points ahead of games against Roma, Bologna and Utrecht.

Although they reached the Champions League knockout phase last season and pushed Bayern Munich all the way, recent campaigns have lacked the excitement that O’Neill enjoyed in the early part of the century.

And the Champions League play-off defeat by Kairat Almaty in August saw Celtic take several steps back.

The Northern Irishman led Celtic to the 2003 UEFA Cup final and enjoyed wins over the likes of Liverpool, Juventus and Barcelona.

However, setbacks against the likes of Bodo/Glimt, Midtjylland, Malmo, Ferencvaros, Copenhagen, Cluj, AEK Athens and Maribor in the last decade have led Celtic fans to believe their club is consistently under-achieving in Europe.

O’Neill said: “What I think will happen is that Celtic will come back. They will compete properly in Europe. That’s my strong belief and that should be the aim for this football club.

“Domestically we’ve been very, very strong. But you want to be strong in European football because that’s what was set in 1967. And that, I’m afraid, is what it’s all about.

“So we have to be that. Are we at this minute? No, we’re not. Midjytlland taught us a lesson.

“But it was nice to restore some of that. And that might be a sign. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to take all the points. But qualification would be nice to get through into the knockout stages. That would be lovely. And it would be a start.

“But mark my words, Celtic will be back to properly involved in European football.”

That task will now lie in the hands of Frenchman Wilfried Nancy, whose arrival from Columbus Crew is set to be confirmed in the coming days.

O’Neill said: “I think there’s movement ahead and that, with a fair wind, something should be happening at the beginning of next week.

“I spoke to a couple of the board members who were saying that things are definitely progressing at the other end.”

O’Neill hopes to have full-backs Colby Donovan and Marcelo Saracchi available for his final game.

Donovan was limping heavily before his cross led to Benjamin Nygren’s clincher in Rotterdam and was replaced by Anthony Ralston immediately afterwards. Saracchi is set to return from a hamstring problem.

“Colby got a stud in his foot, which looked quite nasty,” O’Neill said.

“I thought he had taken cramp, but by the time he came off it was bleeding and it didn’t look great.

“But I think he’ll just push it off and say he wants to play, which is lovely.

“Saracchi wants to be fit all the time so he’s available for Sunday, which is great.”