Martin O'Neill has revealed how he would actively encourage his assistants John Robertson and Steve Walford to form bonds with the Celtic players to foster dressing-room trust.

The Northern Irishman insists that while he wasn't quite stand-offish during his successful five-year stint at Parkhead between 2000 and 2005, he still kept his distance at times to let Robertson and Walford deal with the daily grind.

O'Neill, now 70, concedes that he had complete faith in his former Nottingham Forest team-mate Robertson as well as ex-West Ham and Arsenal player Walford.

He reckons the trio's managerial relationship was akin to that of Brian Clough and Peter Taylor, who guided O'Neill and Robertson's Nottingham Forest side to back-to-back European Cup wins in 1979 and 1980.

So in tune were the three that star players such as Henrik Larsson would virtually have free reign to look after themselves - short of committing larceny, that is.

"I had absolute trust in John Robertson and Steve Walford," O'Neill told The Celtic Way. "I could trust them with anything. We were a strong unit and trio. We were a three-man unit.

Celtic Way:

"We could have our own decisions and conversations about things and once we had made our minds up about things I would trust them implicitly. They would not be going behind my back and saying 'I wouldn't have picked that team' even if we had been beaten in a game. They wouldn't do that.

"Steve was a brilliant coach. He was so laid back - and he was a hypochondriac but when you got him out on that training field he was a new man. He was absolutely terrific.

"John was just about as perfect an assistant manager as you could get. I wasn't totally aloof from the players but I kind of stayed a step back from them at times. I did interact with them and we had strong interactions but I stepped back and allowed John and Steve to enjoy the players' trust and company.

"I told John 'unless Henrik Larsson has committed robbery or something more serious than that then don't bother me or tell me about trivial things'. We would discuss serious things like family issues but the little things I wasn't concerned with.

"After a while, the players had the trust of the two assistant coaches and it was very strong. It was exactly what I wanted as John and Steve were great with the players. They were well-loved because they were good characters but they were also top-notch at their jobs and the players knew exactly what roles these boys would have.

"When Nottingham Forest had the Brian Clough/Peter Taylor management relationship and dynamic there were many members of the board who did not understand what Taylor's role at the club was.

"I thought it was incredibly disrespectful to Peter Taylor. Peter was brilliant for Brian Clough and incredible for Nottingham Forest. That never ever occurred at Celtic as the board knew what John Robertson and Steve Walford brought to the party. John and Steve's roles were really important to me as well as to the Celtic players at that time."

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