John Hartson's cross hits Zurab Khizanishvili on its way into the net

Klos had earlier defied Celtic with two outstanding saves and O'Neill felt something special, or lucky, was required to beat the German keeper.

"I thought we played very well indeed," said the Celtic boss. "We knew before the game we would have to defend, but we ended up creating the most chances and Stefan Klos was magnificent.

"John's just said in the dressing room that he was hoping to repay a favour to Henrik Larsson, but luckily for us it took a deflection, and the way Klos played, we needed that."

O'Neill also reserved particular praise for man-of-the-match Chris Sutton, who performed admirably as a makeshift centre half alongside Stanislav Varga.

"Chris was immense. That's three positions he's played for us in the space of two games," added O'Neill.

Sutton admitted he only found out he was playing at the back shortly before kick off, but played down the praise lavished upon him.

To lose a goal the way we did in the opening exchanges of the second half was disappointing Alex McLeish

"It was a disciplined performance, and we had a few chances, but Stefan played well," said Sutton.

Of his understanding with Varga, he added: "We were talking to each other a lot, helping each other.

"It's not a problem for me to play at the back, but the loss of Bobo Balde was massive for us and I think everybody had been a bit concerned about that."

Goalscorer Hartson was delighted to have broken his scoring duck for the season, but he also admitted that Klos had looked unbeatable before his deflected winner.

"I just said to the gaffer that if it's going in, it needs to go in off the underside of the bar because he seems to stop everything - he's unbelievable," said Hartson.

"I read all the things about Andy Goram when he played here for years but Klos seems to save everything."

Rangers manager Alex McLeish bemoaned his side's lack of cutting edge as they failed to test Magnus Hedman once in the 90 minutes.

"We found them tough to penetrate. We needed to penetrate more and be a bit more ruthless," he acknowledged.

"We needed a strike at goal in the first 10 minutes for instance.

"There is nothing wrong with keeping the ball of course but maybe a shot at goal from deep midfield would have tested Magnus Hedman in his first Old Firm game."