OBSESSED SAYS MARTIN O'NEILL

During my time as Celtic boss, when it came to Rangers, I was absolutely

- MICHAEL GANNON

OLD FIRM bosses 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 he was OBSESSED with Rangers when 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 an 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, you can't influence a game over there at Ibrox.

"But that was as much to do with the fact that, in case you slipped up yourself, you would want Rangers to have done the same thing."