O'Neill finds his reason to stay

The goal is to beat Liverpoool not join them

Martin O'Neill and Gérard Houllier emerged from the Parkhead tunnel on Thursday night late for the start of the second half, and wearing smiles like guilty schoolboys. No one knows if they were swapping jokes, but they are unlikely to be swapping jobs.

While the perceived wisdom in England is that O'Neill is tailor-made to step into Houllier's tracksuit on Merseyside, the evidence for the Celtic manager staying where he is was compelling. If this was a step down, someone had clearly forgotten to tell O'Neill and his 60,000 followers, who lifted the roof with their deafening noise.

O'Neill believes Celtic possess the potential to be among Europe's élite, and he is not about to walk away. Indeed, the only role change he and Houllier might undergo is in him adopting the Liverpool manager's gameplan for the second leg of the Uefa Cup quarter-final at Anfield on Thursday.

While the Frenchman conceded he had been happy with the performance that saw everyone apart from Michael Owen behind the ball for large swathes of the game, O'Neill senses that it will be his turn to unnerve the home crowd in the return.

Despite Liverpool's polished possession, it brought precious little in the way of threat, other than Emile Heskey's equaliser to Henrik Larsson's goal after just 100 seconds. O'Neill spent Friday watching the tape of the game and saw nothing to fear.

If anything, Blackburn Rovers created more chances when they came to Glasgow earlier in the competition and put on a similar display of fluency. Celtic may not carry the 1-0 lead south of the border that they did on that occasion, but their manager feels his team are capable of summoning up the threat that saw them win 2-0 at Ewood Park, and score crucial away goals to knock out Celta Vigo and VfB Stuttgart.

"I know how far we have come when my players are disappointed at only drawing with Liverpool," O'Neill said on Friday. "Anfield will be a bigger test than Blackburn, because of Liverpool's experience and the fact they have such good players. However, I genuinely believe that we can get a goal. A nil-nil would have been good enough to get us through at Blackburn, but it won't here. We have to attack.

"Liverpool didn't have as much possession as Blackburn did when they came here. But I felt we could score there and also in Spain and Germany. This time, we have to."

Underpinning O'Neill's optimism is the shift in European club football that no longer makes results achieved away from home an anomaly. By Thursday, Larsson will have had five more days' fitness under his belt, though the Swede proved that five weeks' absence with a fractured jaw had not dulled his instincts.

Larsson's 35th goal of the season simply bemused a manager who has run out of superlatives for a player who has bravery to match his scoring. "I was surprised that Henrik lasted as long as he did, but his goal lifted him. John Hartson was also on fire and he could have had us 2-0 up inside five minutes.

"However, Liverpool's equaliser rocked us back. If we had held the lead until half-time, it would maybe have forced them to think a bit more. However, the tie is not over. We are still very much in it – and that's not bluster."

Houllier acknowledged that he knows the job is only half-done. "I won't underestimate Celtic because I saw what they did at Blackburn," said the manager. "It will be an exciting game but I don't believe the tie is in our favour. It is only half-time.

"However, this was a very mature European performance despite the young age of some of my players. They showed real mental strength, and you need that at Parkhead. We knew the noise would be unbelievable, but I think it surprised us at the start."

Not that O'Neill, or his players, have any chance of resting up. Today they must face Rangers in the Scottish League Cup final at Hampden Park, and the Celtic manager admitted: "It is the first time I've given a cup final so little consideration. But we've not had eight days to prepare for this, unlike Rangers. We went from one gruelling Old Firm game into another with Liverpool – but it's Rangers, so we're ready to go."