Martin O’Neill – Let’s Go For It

On Sunday Martin O’Neill reached a milestone in his Celtic managerial career when he took charge of Celtic in the 3-2 nail biting win over Kilmarnock. The win marked his 300^th game in charge of Celtic. Tonight he reaches another milestone his 1000^th game as a football manager.

Since his return to Celtic he is unbeaten in Scotland and out of his 3 Europa League games his record reads played 4 won lost 1 and drawn 1. He took 7 points out of a possible 12. Those 4 points helped Celtic to reach the knockout stages of the Europa League.

Tonight he will face an inform Stuttgart team who sit fourth in the Bundesliga. Yesterday at his press conference he commented on the challenge

“They’re obviously very strong, physical, with a lot of good players playing for them. So they’ll be difficult games for us, but while we’re there, let’s go for it.”

“Oh, without a doubt, it would be the toughest, considering the position that they’re in, considering the league that they are in as well. So this would be pretty tough.”

During the Europa campaign Stuttgart finished in 11^th spot having won 5 of their games. In Germany they have won 3 and drawn 1 of their last 5 games. St. Pauli beat them earlier in the month.

I was at Celtic Park back in 2003 when O’Neill’s current number 2 Shaun Maloney took the place of Henrik Larsson who watched from the stands. Maloney scored that night in a 3-1 win. Stuttgart had a player sent off. I think we would all be over joyed if we got  a similar result tonight.

Getting up at 2am to travel to Dublin Airport for an early flight to Edinburgh. It must have been the cheapest route left when I was booking. Back in 2003 I travelled on the bus and the boat which left at the respectable time of 9am arriving into Glasgow shortly after 5pm.

I will arrive much earlier today and I am looking forward to the match day build up in the city and maybe one or two beers.

Andrew Milne is Editor of More than 90 Minutes & Host of the Celtic Soul Podcast