Martin O'Neill's Celtic team were renowned for being entertaining, free scoring and ultimately, winners.

But former Liverpool star Jamie Carragher has detailed the 'fear' factor they instilled in opposition players when facing the Hoops.

The Sky Sports pundit has hailed the Irishman for getting the edge on his opponents while at Parkhead and Leicester City.

Carragher featured as Celtic defeated Liverpool at Anfield 2-0 in their UEFA Cup quarter-final tie in 2003.

And the 43–year–old insists facing O'Neill's side was a major challenge to overcome.

Speaking on Monday Night Football, Carragher said: "Mentioning Celtic and Leicester, I always had a huge fear coming up against your teams. And fear in that, you had a great knack of getting results it felt at that time.

"Certainly with Leicester in the Liverpool team I played in. A lot of times you'd come to Anfield and got decent results. 

"I remember Celtic beat us in the UEFA Cup – I think that might have been the season you got to the Final."

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O'Neill responded: "Absolutely, we had drawn the first game at Celtic 1-1 and it meant we had to score in the game (at Anfield). Alan Thompson scores for us just before half time and John Hartson scores a screamer. We won 2-0.

"It was a big result for us to take us into the semi final but also a big result for Scottish football. We were always compared unfavourably with the English Premier League and Liverpool, as your side were riding so high. This was a big, big result."

Carragher came back: "Can I ask you a question? You may not remember but at that stage when you knocked us out the competition, you were linked heavily, for about six-12 months, with the Liverpool job, were you ever in the running?"

O'Neill said: "No, it didn't materialise or it didn't happen. I was extremely happy at Celtic at the time and it would have taken a lot for me to move away."

Celtic Way:

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