Martin O'Neill reveals his Celtic Harry Kane moment as he goes inside Ange's mind after Tottenham exit

Martin O’Neill has compared Ange Postecoglou’s situation with Harry Kane to his own failed attempt to keep Mark Viduka at Celtic when he first took over at Parkhead.

The Irishman admitted he tried desperately to keep the Aussie striker in the east end of Glasgow when he landed the Hoops back more than two decades ago. But Viduka’s mind was made up that he was leaving the east end of Glasgow after falling out with then club chief executive Allan MacDonald.

Despite Celtic’s lack of success, Viduka had proven himself to be a top striker following his move from Dinamo Zagreb and O’Neill wanted him to be part of his revolution. But having losing his battle to convince him to stay, O’Neill had to sign a replacement and Chris Sutton was signed from Chelsea with Viduka going to Leeds United. With Kane having departed in a big money move to Bayern Munich, O’Neill reckons ex Celtic boss Postecoglou would have gone through a similar experience since taking over in north London.

He told talkSPORT: “If you step into a job you want to be successful and know you have to get off to a reasonably decent start as managers get less and less time so you’re going to be judged by early results in terms of style of play but also results. And your best chance of getting results is with proven players. And you want to keep the player at the club. Maybe Daniel Levy said to Ange immediately there was a fairly decent chance Harry Kane would leave.

“But I’m not so sure he’d have been relaxed because you’re thinking ‘How will I get a replacement?’ ‘Is Richarlison the answer?’. These are the things that go through your mind. Remarkably, I had a similar situation when I went to Celtic.

"Mark Viduka wanted to leave the club - nothing to do with me.