Celtic chairman Brian Quinn is backing Martin O'Neill to talk star striker Henrik Larsson out of retirement. The Swedish international, who fired the Bhoys into the UEFA Cup final with a late winner against Boavista on Thursday night, recently announced his intention to quit when his current contract expires at the end of next season.
However, Quinn has not given up hope of persuading him to stay on and is hoping O'Neill can talk him round to enable the club to hang on to one of its prized assets. Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live's Sportsweek programme, Quinn said: "We hope so. He's a man who knows his own mind and he's a man of very few words. He said publicly recently that he intends to retire at the end of the season, but he's also got a manager who's got a few words more."
He continued: "He's a very persuasive person, so I don't think we've given up hope that Henrik can be persuaded to stay on. You can never ever rule out Henrik Larsson making a contribution and he just has an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time. He can score with either foot, he's great with his head - you cannot afford to neglect him for one moment."
Like Larsson, O'Neill's own future has been the subject of intense speculation for some time with the former Leicester boss being linked with Manchester United, Leeds and Sunderland among others since taking over at Parkhead. However, Quinn remains relaxed over his manager's position and confident he can keep him in Glasgow.
He insisted: "If there weren't speculation in the coming weeks, it would be the first time for three years. There's been speculation about Martin staying with Celtic almost since day one. We've seen off that speculation and he signed a new contract at the beginning of the year. Nothing succeeds like success and that goes for managers as well as football teams. We're confident we can hold on to him."
Filed by Shane Murray
