The 73-year-old former Hoops manager was installed along with ex-Celtic player Shaun Maloney as the interim management team following the stunning resignation of Brendan Rodgers on Monday night.<\/p>\n
Celtic fans continued their protest against Dermot Desmond, the club’s major shareholder, and the board outside the stadium before the game due, in part, to a perceived poor summer transfer window.<\/p>\n
The influential Desmond sat in the directors’ box and watched fellow Irishman Johnny Kenny shoot Celtic into the lead after half an hour and then head in a second 10 minutes later, before goals from midfielder Benjamin Nygren and wide-man Sebastian Tounekti in the second half increased the fun factor.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Celtic interim manager Martin O’Neill reacts on the touchline<\/p>\n
Celtic moved six points behind Premiership leaders Hearts, who drew 2-2 at St Mirren, and remain five ahead of Rangers, who won 1-0 at Hibernian.<\/p>\n
The Hoops meet the Light Blues in Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup semi-final at Hampden Park, where O’Neill managed his last game for Celtic in his first spell – the 2005 Scottish Cup final win over Dundee United.<\/p>\n
The Parkhead fans, while still disgruntled with the Hoops hierarchy, will go into the game more assured by O’Neill’s impact on a side who looked closer to their best form.<\/p>\n
O’Neill, who was Parkhead boss between 2000 and 2005, was given a rousing reception from the home fans and soon had to thank goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel for denying returning Bairns midfielder Scott Arfield.<\/p>\n
However, the home side slowly began to get up a head of steam.<\/p>\n
Scott Bain, the former Celtic keeper, made a fine save at the feet of Nygren in the 28th minute but the home side kept the pressure up and when Bain touched a drive from Nygren on to a post, 22-year-old striker Kenny was on hand to return the rebound into the net.<\/p>\n
Schmeichel made a fine save from Trey Samuel-Ogunsuyi as John McGlynn’s men fought back.<\/p>\n
Moments later, however, Bain had to dive smartly to his left to beat away an effort from James Forrest but he had no chance when Nygren re-directed an Anthony Ralston delivery back across goal for Kenny to head in from eight yards.<\/p>\n
Kenny began the second half by blazing a shot over the bar with only Bain to beat.<\/p>\n
The keeper looked at fault when he parried a shot from Marcelo Saracchi out to Nygren who fired into the net for the easiest of goals just before the hour, allowing the home side to cruise.<\/p>\n
Japan striker Daizen Maeda, recovered from a hamstring injury, took over from Kenny, providing another boost for the home fans, who cheered again when Tounekti raced clear of the Bairns defence to smash in a fourth, with time for 19-year-old forward Callum Osmand, signed from Fulham in the summer, to come on to make his debut on a night when the supporters enjoyed O’Neill rolling back the years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 73-year-old former Hoops manager was installed along with ex-Celtic player Shaun Maloney as the interim management team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[1187,18,19,17,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-152404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-celtic-fc","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115460352670998832","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}