O'Neill restores the balance of power while working ordinary miracles

Last season was indeed an extraordinary one in the SPL; apart from anything else, it was the first time in living memory that the team emerging from the Old Firm encounters with most points has failed to take the title. 'Twas ever thus, as they say, so it's heartening to see that Celtic have continued this season the way they finished the last one, by taking all three points from the first Old Firm game of the season staged at the Death Star.

Even more heartening was the manner of the victory. Although the scoreline suggests the tightest of victories, this was as comfortable a win as any the Hoops have had there in recent years - and there have been quite a few to choose from. All this despite the fact that the Teds were positively drooling with anticipation (as opposed to simply drooling) given the fact that Celtic had to take the field with four regular defenders unavailable and without the injured Paul Lambert.

It was yet another tactical kick in the nethers for big Eck, whose team of no-hopers and elderly rakes having a gap year in Glasgow while topping up their retirement pensions peched and wheezed and miserably failed to trouble the phenomenon between the Celtic sticks that is Magnus Hedman. A phenomenon because of the number of games he has played compared to the number of saves he has been called upon to make.

Watching the likes of Capucho, Emerson and Ostenstad actually softened my heart a bit towards Brian Quinn and the Bhoys on the Bhoard: maybe it is better, after all, to be in a position to retain your best players rather than scrabble around in the Bosman bucket if this is what there is to be found at the bottom of it.

Had it not been for Klos the Orcs would have been heading for the exits long before they eventually did. At least they would have spared themselves the unedifying sight of Egil Ostenstad trying to control a football. He looked a member of the public who had simply wandered onto the pitch.

In the final analysis it was yet more evidence that in Martin O'Neill we have a manager who is able to wring every last ounce from the players at his disposal... and then some.

Dominance over Rangers is one thing - they haven't won against Celtic in the league for over a year now and have only won one in the last eleven SPL meetings - but our true yardstick these days is in Europe. The games against Bayern and Lyon have demonstrated once again that Celtic have every right to be keeping this kind of company. O'Neill seems able to get his players to step up ten gears by comparison with some of the performances we have had to endure at the likes of Easter Road and Firhill this season. Celtic might have been mugged in Munich but the players certainly gave Lyon a lashing at Parkhead.

Special mention has to go to the latter game. Not only were team and fans in perfect harmony, but there appeared to be an almost perceptible change in the mood emanating from the stands. The demented screams of those football purists who demand the ball be hoofed forward at every opportunity are being drowned out by the realisation of the majority that Celtic are, literally, in a different league when it comes to these European encounters.

The reward came with a sublime goal when Miller finished off a move of twenty-odd passes.

Yet, if the fans, the manager and the players are moving forward together, the AGM in early October saw the board once again put something of a dampener on the collective spirits with their now familiar refrain about belt-tightening, prudence and scary debt monsters ready to jump out of the safe should they be tempted even to think about spending a few quid on players. Although Brian Quinn has (kind of) said that there might be money available for new players should the team qualify for the second phase of the Champions League it's unlikely that the funds he's thinking about will be the kind that will tempt the Rivaldos of the world to Parkhead.

In the meantime Our Favourite Martin continues to work wonders with the players at his disposal. And what a job he's doing. Good grief, he's even managed to make Stan Varga look like an accomplished defender!

How many more miracles will he be able to work before this European campaign is over?

MANFRED LURKER