Martin O’Neill has reflected on the changes in football between his two eras managing Celtic.

Over two decades separate the Irishman’s first two spells in charge at Parkhead. This week marked a year since he made his shock return following the resignation of Brendan Rodgers last season.

Of course, O’Neill was already a legendary figure at the club, having transformed their fortunes during a five-year spell in the 2000s. That era saw him lead the Hoops to a treble and a European final, two achievements which had previously been achieved only by Jock Stein in the club’s history.

In delivering a league and Scottish Cup double in the most unlikely fashion possible during his second and third spells, he cemented his status as a Parkhead great. But what changed between the two spells?

Martin O’Neill on Celtic in Europe, finances and man-management

Firstly, discussing how the European landscape has changed, O’Neill said: “I thought it was more of a level playing field so many years ago when we could compete with some of the English teams and bring in Alan Thompson, Chris Sutton, and Neil Lennon and these sorts of players.

“Now, wages-wise and financially, you’re trying to compete with teams in the Championship in England. A lot of them see the Premier League as the Holy Grail, where the finances are. They’re prepared to gamble big time on getting up and paying big wages to players.”

However, not everything has changed. He continued: “I think that’s the one thing about man-management. I don’t think that changes. You might have a slightly different approach, but effectively it’s the same thing. You’re trying to man-manage people, and if they’ve not got the confidence and you believe in them, that’s the most important thing.

“If you believe in them, and you know that they’ve done something for you in the past and they can get back to that again, then you will encourage. You’ll do everything to try and get them back on course. If you feel as if it won’t matter, then obviously you would have to try and look for a replacement.”

Finally, on the domestic front, O’Neill said: “I think Rangers are a big challenge this season. Also, I don’t think for one minute that Hearts are out of it either. You do have a job on your hands all the time. You’re managing a big club like this, the expectation is to win.

“We had two separate weeks of domestic winning in the sense that every time we made an attack, we seemed to score a goal against Hearts, and then we had to fight for everything in the other game.

“There are different ways of winning football matches. During the course of a season, believe it or not, I know this from Nottingham Forest days: the times that you played incredible stuff over a 42-game season was maybe 12 to 15 times.

“The rest of the time, you really had to grind it out, and that shows you something about the spirit of a team. All of those ingredients are really important. You have to have flair players, and you have the boys who do really hard work.”