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Celtic boss Martin O'Neill's comforting development as plan revealed to move out of ensconcement O’Neill returns to the dugout after recent health scare as Celtic visit Dundee United in League Cup High up on any doctor’s instruction sheet when a patient is discharged from hospital is the need to take steps to avoid places of obvious distress. For Martin O’Neill and Celtic, Tannadice—where the Parkhead side plays Dundee United in a Premier Sports Cup last 16 clash on Saturday evening—certainly fits this description. It’s where in March the manager feared he’d watched his side’s title hopes disappear into one of the pockmarks disfiguring the Dundee United pitch at the time. Celtic endured a second successive defeat at Tannadice to fall five points behind leaders Hearts. Afterwards O’Neill stressed his side now had to win every one of their last seven league matches to have a hope of lifting the title. Although he now says he didn’t strictly think that would be necessary, it turns out it was. Celtic took maximum points and pipped Hearts at the death. While he might have picked a different venue, O’Neill is relishing the prospect of putting on the tracksuit again following his unplanned latest break from the frontline. There’s also the small matter of an upcoming Champions League play-off tie against LASK – reckoned to be worth as much as £40 million – to consider. What the club described as a “small procedure” meant O’Neill was unable to attend last Sunday’s 5-1 victory over Kilmarnock. Instead he was watching on television in his hotel room as Chris Sutton delivered his expert punditry on Sky Sports. “With sound turned down,” O’Neill joked after taking training at Lennoxtown on Friday following his return to active duty. “No, no I love Chris,” he quickly added. “He was great for me. We just didn’t necessarily agree on how the game was going.” For anyone of a Celtic persuasion, it seemed to go pretty well. Celtic were three up by the half hour mark after a hat-trick from new record signing Kasper Hogh. They then made it 4-1 soon after half time before Kilmarnock reduced the deficit through Michael Schonning-Larsen. Luke McCowan restored the four-goal margin in Celtic’s favour and the game finished 5-1. “When it goes 4-1, you start to get edgy again for a second or two,” said O’Neill. Leaving hospital to come back to a hotel does not sound like an ideal arrangement. O’Neill revealed he is planning to move to a more permanent dwelling. “I'm ensconced at this moment, but I'm hoping to move out,” he said. "A lot of this had to do with my wife (Geraldine) doing some classes down in London at the time and couldn't move last year because she was totally tied into them. So I think that she's just going to postpone things now for a while and be up here.” Although he is looking well, Geraldine’s presence alongside him can only be a comforting development. The 74-year-old stressed that he was feeling a lot better. “Certainly better than I was the last time I saw you that Monday night,” he added, with reference to his post-match briefing following the flag day 1-0 win over Dundee. The club confirmed O’Neill had been admitted to hospital two days later. He has been touched by all the concern. It’s not necessarily misplaced given the seemingly endless distressing news about former players who might be considered to be in the same class as O’Neill at school in terms of their playing careers. The death aged 78 of legendary former Aston Villa ’keeper Jimmy Rimmer has just been announced while Kevin Keegan, who was just a year older than O’Neill, passed away last month of cancer. Both have a European Cup final pedigree shared by O’Neill. They occupied the same world, had the same friends in many cases. John Robertson, O’Neill’s former teammate and managerial lieutenant, died last Christmas Day aged 72. It is a reminder of the Northern Irishman's remarkable longevity in the game and also of mortality. “I am delighted for the wish you’re having for me to stay on this earth a bit longer!” he smiled. “No, I take the point. Despite last week, I am eternally grateful for the opportunity like this that has come up. Regardless of what happens, whether we don’t win another game or otherwise, it has been really terrific.” What was it he said from the centre circle of Celtic Park after that last-gasp title shootout win over Hearts in May? Celtic, he said, had given him “reasons to live”. Tannadice was one of the places where he questioned the wisdom of coming back to take over from Wilfried Nancy, whose short Celtic career included a damaging defeat at the same ground in December. The later Spring reversal seemed to extinguish Celtic’s title hopes completely. “We were really poor that day,” remembered O’Neill. “Leaving the pitch aside, we were really poor. We didn't create anything. We had two chances. Kieran Tierney had one over the bar. And the other one was Iheanacho. It was the one game that he started and he had his shot that I think it was steered away. “Outside of that, we created nothing and deserved to lose the match. Honestly, it was a long way back. I know we said in the dressing room that we'd have to win every game, which was seven matches. Deep in my heart, I was hoping that maybe we might be able to afford to draw one of the games. As it turns out, we couldn’t. “But when you walk away from Tannadice, it's a long way (back). A long time to think about it as well, because it was the international break. Overall, I thought that we'd have to set our minds on winning seven on the trot. But I was hoping that maybe one game, if there was some sort of hitch, a draw might still be sufficient…” O’Neill’s ability to inspire the team to a run of seven consecutive victories while also winning the Scottish Cup is already the stuff of Celtic legend. His return couldn’t be better timed given the challenges ahead. Comments Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.