Exclusive: Former Celtic Boss Martin O'Neill Believes Brendan Rodgers Has Silenced any Doubters

Former Celtic boss Martin O’Neill is convinced Brendan Rodgers has won over any “doubters” in his second spell at the club.

And he insists another memorable Treble would be the perfect way to silence any remaining critics for good.

Rodgers enjoyed memorable treble-winning success in his first season in charge of the club from 2016-2019.

The Northern Irishman impressed by winning an incredible EIGHT trophies in his first spell at Parkhead.

But some die-hard supporters were unhappy with his exit in February 2019, despite leaving the club eight points clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership.

“Brendan [Rodgers] has done very well indeed going back there,” O’Neill, who himself enjoyed memorable success with the Hoops, told SportsBoom in an exclusive interview.

“He’s won over the doubters. I don’t think Brendan’s ability as a manager was ever in doubt, but it was to do with some of fans and the fact that some of those fans saw him leave in the circumstances that he did."

“That’s all forgotten now, it really has been. It’s been a fantastic season. Well done to him for what he’s achieved."

“Domestically they’ve been really strong, apart from one small hiccup against Rangers, but overall they’ve been dominant."

“And, because they’ve got such a big lead in the SPL, it takes some of the pressure off [going for the Treble].”

The Hoops are flying high at the SPL summit, a staggering 16 points clear of arch-rivals Rangers and seemingly unstoppable in the race for a FOURTH successive league title, the last of which came under Rodgers’ expert guidance last season.

And a special Treble is within touching distance again having already beaten The Gers in this season’s Scottish League Cup final and booked their place in the Scottish FA Cup semi-finals with a thumping win over Hibernian in their last cup clash.

If the Hoops do achieve a Treble this season it would be the club's sixth in nine years, an incredible star which empahises their dominance of Scottish football.

And legendary Hoops boss O’Neill has been mightily impressed with how his former club have performed this season.

The proud Northern Irishman, who guided the club to seven trophies in memorable spell in charge of the Hoopes from June 2000 to May 2005, is confident Rodgers is the perfect manager to help the club take the next step in the Champions League.

The Hoops suffered a confidence-sapping 7-1 humiliation at the hands of Borussia Dortmund in their first Champions League group outing this season.

But to Rodgers and his team’s immense credit, they showed bags of character throughout the rest of their qualifying campaign, eventually knocked out of the competition 3-2 on aggregate across two legs to German giants Bayern Munich.

A sickening 90th minute winner for Bayern in the second leg dumped the Hoops out, but O’Neill, who celebrated his 73rd birthday this week, believes his former club will learn have some vital lessons from their performances in Europe’s premier cup competition.

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE AMBITION

“I think the new Champions League format really suits a club like Celtic in many aspects,” reflected O’Neill.

“I think the old format was tired, this format is much better."

“But what I’ve been really impressed with Celtic is the learning they’ve done [in the competition]."

“You can only make some judgements from the results – and from the results they’ve learnt quickly from the debacle against [Borussia] Dortmund."

“So to go to Atalanta and get a really, really great draw, was brilliant. I know the goalkeeper [Kasper Schmeichel] made some great saves that night, but even so it was a great draw against a more than half-decent team."

“It could have easily worked out badly after Dortmund, but then they fought back against [RB] Leipzig and played wonderfully well, maybe as well as they’ve done in the tournament."

“It’s great, it’s genuinely great to see that character. Even narrowly losing to Bayern Munich, I still thought Celtic could have nicked something. I think Bayern were probably happy to hear the final whistle with the crowd on them."

“I was covering the Aston Villa game and Celtic were 2-0 down after a few minutes and you think to yourself ‘this could be anything’, but I thought they showed a lot of resilience and fought back in that game."

“They’ve shown a lot of character this season.”