{"id":487990,"date":"2025-10-10T09:35:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T09:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/487990\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T09:35:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T09:35:12","slug":"martin-oneill-takes-hilarious-pop-at-chris-sutton-while-reflecting-on-ex-celtic-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/487990\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin O’Neill takes hilarious pop at Chris Sutton while reflecting on ex-Celtic star"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mark Viduka\u2019s time at Celtic was brief but explosive.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Joining the Hoops in a troubled period, there was plenty going on around Viduka \u2013 some of it his own doing \u2013 but he put up excellent goal numbers before leaving at the same time as Martin O\u2019Neill\u2019s<\/a> arrival in 2000.<\/p>\n

Despite his numbers, the Leeds and Australia legend was remembered equally for what he did and didn\u2019t do at Celtic<\/a> \u2013 his effort was questioned more than once.<\/p>\n

The Hoops finished on just 69 points in the 1999-2000 campaign which saw John Barnes sacked mid-season. O\u2019Neill transformed the team\u2019s fortunes with a treble the following year.<\/p>\n

But there is one hilarious reason why O\u2019Neill wishes Viduka never left the Hoops \u2013 and it has something to do with the man he was signed to replace.<\/p>\n

Chris Sutton<\/a> was more than a worthy replacement for Viduka. Across five-and-a-half years in Glasgow, he scored 86 goals, playing in positions right across the pitch.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Brilliant Italian commentary surfaces of Daizen Maeda\u2019s Celtic winner vs Motherwell<\/a><\/p>\n

\"MartinPhoto by Ian MacNicol\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill facilitated his \u00a36 million arrival from Chelsea, but possibly didn\u2019t enjoy all of his time in Sutton\u2019s company.<\/p>\n

Speaking about Russell Martin\u2019s<\/a> sacking from Rangers on Sky Sports News, O\u2019Neill reflected on his start to life in Glasgow, before making the comment on Sutton.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cYou need time to get yourself together, but the one thing you have to do is get up and running in Glasgow.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got lucky in aspects \u2013 my early games, I signed Chris Sutton very quickly after Mark Viduka didn\u2019t want to stay at the football club.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish Mark had stayed as it meant that I would never have had to have met Chris Sutton! But overall, he did brilliantly for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won early on, so by the time that we played Rangers in about the fifth or sixth game, we\u2019d already won those matches. You\u2019ve got to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin O\u2019Neill\u2019s record vs other Celtic managers<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill is remembered by many as the greatest Celtic manager of his generation \u2013 but how does he compare to the competition?<\/p>\n

Despite being at the club for over five-and-a-half years, McNeill has the greatest win percentage of any Hoops manager in history, winning over three quarters of his matches.<\/p>\n

No other Celtic manager has done this. Ange Postecoglou<\/a> comes closest at 73%, but this was over just a two year period.<\/p>\n

With 282 games managed, he now ranks below Neil Lennon<\/a> and Brendan Rodgers<\/a> \u2013 but unlike his two countrymen, he did it across one spell \u2013 and guided the Hoops to a European final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Viduka\u2019s time at Celtic was brief but explosive. Joining the Hoops in a troubled period, there was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[2353,2987,94,64120,79673,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-487990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-celtic","9":"tag-chris-sutton","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-mark-viduka","12":"tag-martin-oneill","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115349194825867212","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}