Celtic manager Martin O’Neill was relieved to see his side “conjure” a victory over Falkirk after admitting his concern over facing the Bairns.
Goals either side of half-time from Tomas Cvancara and Benjamin Nygren earned a 2-0 win which moved Celtic ahead of Rangers on goals scored and six points behind William Hill Premiership leaders Hearts.
Celtic had beaten Utrecht in the Europa League on Thursday and sixth-placed Falkirk were not O’Neill’s ideal opponents after the Hoops scraped a win against John McGlynn’s side last month.
O’Neill said: “Tough game. Big win.
“I was really concerned about the game beforehand. Big exertions on Thursday evening, just wondering about the energy levels as much as anything else.
“And obviously Falkirk are a really good side. The manager has been fantastic, how he’s assembled a side who can play.
“I don’t think after (Thursday) you would want to have played Hearts or Rangers but outside that, Falkirk was not the team on Sunday I would have been wanting to play, even at home.
“But we conjured up a win, we got the two goals, and there were periods of the game where we did really well and periods where we didn’t have the ball.
“But it was great to win, and I think it was an important win obviously because we have to hang in there.”
O’Neill was delighted to see loan signing Cvancara net the opening goal on his home debut.
“It was great and it was the breakthrough as well too, which was needed,” he said. “And that’s nice for him and it’ll give him a really big boost of confidence.
“There’s parts of his game I think that obviously need tidying up, which I think he can do.
“He hasn’t played much football in recent times, so that’s two games for us, he makes the goal for us at Hearts – and I think at that stage he might have been the only player on our field who could have made that run at the time – and (on Sunday) he’s come in and he’s got the goal.
“So he’s wanting to prove himself, and I think that there’s a player there.”
Falkirk had 14 shots at goal and manager McGlynn was encouraged by his side’s display.
“Our performance was good,” he said. “The result’s not what we wanted but we’ve done really well coming away from home to Celtic Park and showing the character to go and play the way that we would look to play normally. We showed a lot of personality.
“I thought at times we were really, really good. Kasper Schmeichel made a really good save from Barney (Stewart) early in the game.
“I think to win here, you probably have to go in front. If we’d got in front – I know it’s ifs, buts and maybes – it could turn out differently.”
