Martin O’Neill hails ‘terrific’ home support as Celtic see off Falkirk

Celtic manager Martin O’Neill praised the “terrific” home support for staying with the team in Saturday’s 3-1 win over Falkirk but was careful not to get carried away over building momentum.

The champions recorded a third-consecutive William Hill Premiership victory in front of a packed and noisy Celtic Park with the recently-reinstated Green Brigade joined in full voice by other parts of the stadium.

The atmosphere could be crucial in the title race, with Celtic still to host main rivals Rangers and Hearts.

O’Neill said: “I think the support we got was terrific. They stayed with the team when there were moments of anxiety which I thought we showed for a little period of time and which could have spilled over into the crowd.

“They stayed with us, which was fantastic.”

Celtic have now won four games in a row in all competitions for only the second time this season.

They managed five on the spin in O’Neill’s first caretaker spell in charge, immediately before the doomed appointment of Wilfried Nancy.

There were other positives for O’Neill. Daizen Maeda took his tally to three goals in two matches after ending a 17-game run without scoring in the previous weekend’s Scottish Cup win over St Mirren.

O’Neill also got a key player back on the pitch against Falkirk as right-back Alistair Johnston made his first appearance since aggravating a hamstring injury in October.

The Canada international, who came on in the 72nd minute, has only played two full games all season.

“I thought that was amazing,” O’Neill said. “He is very popular here and there’s reasons for that.

“That was very encouraging. I thought he did fine. This week’s training will bring him on again. He’s itching to go.”

Despite the encouraging signs, O’Neill knows there is plenty of work to do if Celtic are to retain their title, with a trip to face Hibernian next weekend.

Both teams have taken four points from the three meetings between the sides this season.

O’Neill said: “We have a tough task next week.

“We have been battling strongly. We showed some fine play, made some mistakes which could have been costly.

“But we got a grip of that and the introduction of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain brought a calmness to us.

“In terms of momentum, I don’t know. We are still a long way from home.”

Falkirk manager John McGlynn feels his team will continue giving their all in every game, whether they have a chance of moving up the table or not.

The Bairns had several chances before Maeda’s pressing led to goals for himself and Kieran Tierney before half-time.

Kyrell Wilson pulled a well-taken goal back before Maeda struck again.

“We’ve shown great mentality,” McGlynn said. “We’ve shown that we’re not going to just throw the towel in and we need to learn from games like this.

“It’s still a huge learning curve for all of these players and that development is really, really important.”