Celtic manager Martin O'Neill has given an encouraging update on his health, speaking publicly for the first time since he was admitted to hospital for a minor procedure last week.
The 74-year-old boss sat out Celtic's 5-1 thrashing of Kilmarnock on Sunday, though he still delivered his pre-match team talk to the squad at their hotel before the game. Speaking on Celtic Player, the club's in-house channel, O'Neill said he was feeling considerably better than he had been in recent days.
"Much better, than last week anyway," O'Neill said. "Yeah, a couple of ailments rolled into one, unfortunately, but I'm getting there, which is good news."
The veteran manager, who previously managed the Republic of Ireland national team and represented Northern Ireland as a player, did not go into further detail about the nature of the procedure, which the club had only described as "small" at the time. His absence from the touchline did little to disrupt Celtic's form, as the side ran riot against Kilmarnock in a five-goal display.
O'Neill's mood was further lifted this week by news off the pitch, with Celtic confirming the signing of Egyptian winger Haissem Hassan from Real Oviedo on Wednesday evening. The 24-year-old, who represented France at youth level before switching his international allegiance to Egypt, drew attention with strong performances at the World Cup.
According to O'Neill, the move for Hassan was no last-minute decision but the product of a long-running pursuit that dated back to the turn of the year. "We'd been tracking him in January time," he explained. "We were hoping that we'd be able to do something. Oviedo, obviously, at the bottom end of the league, were unwilling to let anybody go at that stage. Totally understandable. So, it wasn't as if to say it was just like an afterthought for us in the last couple of weeks. Far from it."
O'Neill added that Hassan was one of several targets identified by Celtic in that particular area of the pitch, describing the winger as an ideal fit for what the club had been searching for. "We have been chasing him, a number of players, in that sort of position that we feel as if they will add something to us," he said. "And he very, very much fitted the bill."
The Celtic boss was particularly effusive about the qualities Hassan is expected to bring to the squad, suggesting he could quickly become a fan favourite once settled at the club. "When he gets to see the surrounds here, I just think he'll glow. I think he will," O'Neill said.
He also used the opportunity to praise the winger's attacking instincts, lamenting that dribbling past opponents has become an undervalued skill in the modern game. "People start to think about the number of things that players can't do and I think you have to stay more in the positive of what players can do," he said. "Going past players now is a sort of a dying art, which is really almost unforgivable in football. That's what fans get excited about. And actually, to tell you the truth, so do fellow players."
With his health seemingly on the mend and a new attacking option added to the squad, O'Neill will now turn his attention to Celtic's next fixture. The club return to action on Saturday when they host Dundee United in the Scottish League Cup, a match O'Neill will hope to oversee from the touchline as his recovery continues.
Based on reporting from The Independent.