O'Neill 'free from commercial pressure'
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Your support makes all the difference.Celtic's manager Martin O'Neill insists he does not feel the financial pressure to reach the Champions' League group stages. The club will face Basle of Switzerland at Parkhead tonight in the final qualifying round before the lucrative league stages. But, while the cash generated by the group stages is huge, O'Neill says that the club will still thrive if Celtic do not progress.
"The pressure for myself and the team is purely from a footballing aspect," he said. "But, commercially speaking, we know the benefits we had from the Champions' League money last season. It would be good to get through but the club have done without Champions' League money for the last eight or nine years. If we fail this time, we will have to do without it again."
O'Neill has dismissed suggestions that the game has come too early for his side, just two games into the new campaign, and believes the 4-0 Premier League win over Aberdeen at Pittodrie last weekend will help his side's cause.
"The Aberdeen game will be a good one for bringing on players a bit more," he said. "Ideally, we would like to be two or three games further in but that is not to be and it is not something we can use as an excuse. We have known for quite some time of how the fixture list falls. Manchester United kick off without a league game under them so it is swings and roundabouts."
But O'Neill has warned his side not to take the Swiss side lightly after they overcame Ajax at the same stage last year.
O'Neill said: "Ajax have gone on to prove themselves to be a very good team since then. There was talk Ajax were only at the start of their season at this time last year. But Basle are well into their stride and it will be a difficult one. We knew the Ajax game would be hard as they were a seeded side and have gone automatically into the group section of the Champions' League. This will be hard – no doubt about it."
Celtic's captain Paul Lambert admitted that the level of expectancy can be distracting. The Parkhead side are widely tipped to progress into the group stages at the expense of Basle, who are coached by the former Tottenham manager Christian Gross.
Lambert recognises the need for the side to remain focused. The Scotland midfielder said: "It is a massive game to try and get into this section. The problem is everybody is expecting us to win. You have to earn the right to win football games. The expectancy level does annoy me, to be honest. But it doesn't work that way.
"If we don't play as well as we can, we could be in trouble. But, if we don't lose an away goal, it will always give us a chance."
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