HOORAY HENRIK; Some critics in England might have needed convincing

FOR such an impassive fellow, Henrik Larsson can have a profound effect on everyone else's mood. There had been a brooding, darkly menacing atmosphere in the air before kick-off at Ewood Park on Thursday night, but by the end of the match the Celtic supporters were so jubilant they revelled in the sight of an idiot in a Rangers top who attempted to taunt them and succeeded only in making a fool of himself.

By then Blackburn Rovers' fans were either streaming away from the ground or sitting in mute despondency. Larsson had snuffed the fight out of them. He had chosen a match that was endangered by the preponderance of forged tickets and which was being staged just four days after former England striker Malcolm MacDonald had called him an "imposter" to silence his detractors in unequivocal terms.

From high in Ewood Park's main stand I thought Larsson was going to spurn the chance which buried Blackburn. His isolation was so splendid, the amount of time he had so generous, and the opportunity so unexpected and precious that the image of Larsson's critics knowingly enjoying a sclaffed finish flashed across my mind.

How galling it would have been if he had squandered the kind of chance he converts in his sleep in the Scottish Premierleague. Instead, it was the composure and clarity of Larsson's own thinking which exploited Blackburn goalkeeper Brad Friedel with murderous efficiency.

Celtic will not find it hard to replace Larsson. That description is far too mild. The set of circumstances which underpin the Swede's career in Scotland are exceptional and finding a comparable replacement is an impossible mission. He cost a paltry (pounds) 650,000 because of a clause in his Feyenoord contract, a clause inserted because he wanted to leave the Dutch club. He was seeking the reassurance and stability of unreserved affection, which Wim Jansen and Celtic fans quickly provided because he proved himself uniquely talented in a Scottish context.

The love affair endures because his family like it in Scotland and, eventually, his financial whims were met by Parkhead directors who could not contemplate generosity of a similar scale for his successor. Because that successor will be paid less, and by definition worth less, he will score less.

All this is of growing significance to Celtic because even the king of kings is not immortal. Larsson's contract runs out at the end of next season. He had already announced he would leave Celtic to return to Sweden before subsequently changing his mind - in one respect - by saying that he would, instead, seek one final contract to play somewhere else.

Celtic supporters had been quite comfortable with the idea of their hero voluntarily going out to pasture among the fjords, so some felt a little hurt that he now intends to have one last hurrah without them.

What if Henrik turned out against Celtic in a Champions League tie for his new team? There are a few unsentimental types in the stands and in the boardroom. The directors, sensitive to the club's debt, look at Larsson and see a lucrative transfer fee depreciating rapidly towards worthlessness in 18 months time. If the remarkably prolific forward wants to see out his remaining season- and-a-half at Parkhead, though, it is a wish he is entitled to have granted. Anyone who attempted to force him out prematurely would face a lynch mob.

At lunchtime after the Blackburn game Martin O'Neill was asked a question which must instantly have sounded the internal alarm bell which goes off when he hears something which might be thrown at him for days, weeks and months to come: namely, will he try to persuade Larsson to change his mind and stay on?

O'Neill gave a good impression of having not yet considered the matter, although he quickly realised that his dismissive initial response - that 18 months was a "lifetime" in football - was nonsensical. It is within that very timespan in which clubs, players and agents routinely knuckle down to the business of negotiating, or refusing, new deals.

Larsson is a deliberate, self-assured character who knows his mind. In the relationship between him and his club the indebtedness is on Celtic's behalf, which further diminishes the likelihood of even as forceful a personality as O'Neill changing his mind about remaining at Celtic Park. Larsson will feel that after all he has done for them the least Celtic could do would be to let him leave without a fuss.

It would be unthinkable, of course, for O'Neill to not even attempt to make him stay. "He exited the national scene [after the World Cup] and although there were cries for him to come back, he hasn't given it another thought. So it may well be the same with the club situation," said the manager.

"I think Henrik will have his own mind made up about what he wants and when the time comes the football club will have to look around and try to do precisely that because the club has to live on after that.

"But of course we would try. Like anything else 18 months is a long time but negotiations with players do start at least a year in advance and Henrik would certainly come into that category if that's the case."

O'Neill has been down this route before. He successfully persuaded Lubo Moravcik to stay another year. But Moravcik was then 34 and was not restless for a significant move elsewhere. Larsson will be still four months short of his 33rd birthday when his current deal ends. The likes of Davie Moyes, also in the stand at Ewood Park, might have pictured him in an Everton shirt at the start of the season after next.

"My view is that Henrik would score goals in any league," said O'Neill. "He might not score the abundant number he does here if he was in the English Premiership or the Spanish league for example. We all probably accept that. But the fact is that he would score goals. Deep down he would have gained enormous satisfaction from scoring at Blackburn. I think the people within the game appreciate what he can do."

Even if dressing it up as a battle of Britain was somewhat overblown, the Scottish team defeated the English one home and away, as Rangers did to Leeds United in 1992, and Larsson scored in both legs, as Ally McCoist did.

Leeds were champions then so that victory had more resonance, but Celtic survive and may yet make more powerful European statements. On Thursday night it felt like O'Neill had steered himself through a turbulent period. The match was as thorough a managerial triumph as it was possible to imagine. O'Neill has been humbled into changing his formation mid-match in Old Firm games, and here he was inflicting the same indignity on Graeme Souness in his own back yard. After tumbling out of the Champions League to the then unfancied Swiss club Basle it was also a timely reminder - in front of the audience, which matters most to him, Britain - of his ability to succeed in European competition.

His team had three forwards but was essentially conservative. Chris Sutton was an attacking midfielder, but for once Stilian Petrov was not. He sat deeper with Neil Lennon, while Steve Guppy and Didier Agathe played largely in their own half as defensive wing-backs. They provided impenetrable support for the back three.

"The boys' natural instinct is to go forward so we didn't want to curb that," said O'Neill. But that was true only of the second half, when Blackburn Rovers were dispirited and out of ideas and Celtic threatened to pick off an even more telling margin of victory. As far as away ties in Europe are concerned it was textbook stuff.

Blackburn supporters had earlier chanted "you'll never play in England". In relation to Larsson that may have been more of a hope than a taunt.

Copyright 2002 SMG Sunday Newspapers Ltd.
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