Martin O’Neill has addressed the comments he made before the international break when he suggested he could walk away from Celtic if he felt he was no longer the right man for the job.

O’Neill’s comments came after a number of sore results, and he has now admitted he probably would not have spoken the same way had there not been a pause in the fixture list straight after.

The Celtic manager was clear that the last thing he wanted was to be seen as stepping away from pressure after only a short run of poor results.

Speaking to TNT Sports, O’Neill said: “This is a blip, or was a blip, in the last couple of weeks.

“The last thing you want to do is be walking away from the situation because you’ve lost a couple of matches.

“If there hadn’t been an international break at the time I probably wouldn’t have made the comments that I did do during my time particularly speaking to you.

“I’ve made some comments that I’ve regretted about 35 seconds after I’d made them so for me it was an absolute reset.”

O’Neill did not try to pretend the comments had not been made, but he did make clear they came in the heat of a bad moment.

Celtic now need that reset to show on the pitch.

Benfica away is not a gentle return to European football, especially after Celtic lost their opening Europa League league phase match at home to Ferencvaros.

O’Neill also spoke about what European nights mean to Celtic, saying: “It’s what you aspire to. You want to play European matches. It’s what the club is built on and, yeah, let’s try and go for it.”

He said: “When you have a couple of sore ones in a row it does sort of dent you and knock you a little bit, but you know very quickly that switch in your head goes off and now it’s about trying to rectify it and put things right.”

That is where Celtic are now.

The talk about O’Neill’s future has been addressed, but the only proper answer will come in performances.

A result in Lisbon would change the mood quickly, but even a strong display would give Celtic something to build from after a spell where too many questions have been asked of the manager and the players.