Martin O'Neill lifts the lid on Rangers obsession as former Celtic boss insists pressure is all on Philippe Clement

Old Firm managers regularly claim to take no more than a passing interest in what is going on across the city.

Martin O’Neill doesn’t buy it – as he was OBSESSED with Rangers when he was in charge at Celtic. The Northern Irishman famously called the Ibrox side the benchmark after arriving in 2000 on the back of Gers winning the league by 21 years the previous campaign. O’Neill’s men got off to a flier with the iconic 6-2 win at Celtic Park that set them on their way to a Treble.

Celtic left Rangers in the rear view mirror – but the former boss still couldn’t take his eyes of his rivals. He said: “I have to say, for my five years there, I was obviously obsessed with the Rangers. Yeah, I had an obsession with them! You didn't expect Rangers to drop too many points, and the number of times that on the Saturday, after we'd finished our training and before meeting at the hotel, I would be driving around, listening to the last 25 minutes of the game at Ibrox.

“If it was still a draw at the time, I'd say, oh please, just wrap it up now, wrap it up now! Then you switched it off and you came back on again… you just knew from the crowd that they'd scored.

“I thought, oh, Jesus. So, it was wild, honestly and I did that until my wife told me, catch yourself on, and you can't influence a game over there at Ibrox. But was like that, and that was as much to do with the fact that that was, in case you slipped up yourself, you would want Rangers to have done the same thing.”

O’Neill had good reasons to keep tabs on Rangers back then, with Dick Advocaat splashing out serious money on European stars in a bid to conquer Europe. He said: “I remember Dick saying, when he signed I think about five lads from the Scottish league, he said this is