The Danish midfielder scored in Tuesday's 5-0 demolition of Alloa Athletic in the Scottish Cup third round.

Such progress will be an inspiration to Liverpool's Markus Babbel, who has recently suffered from the same problem.

And Celtic manager Martin O'Neill said: "He is certainly going the right way about winning a new contract.

His man-of-the-match performance came in only his second start since his return to training and prompted O'Neill to admit that he was prepared to give Wieghorst another one-year contract when his present deal expires in the summer.

But Wieghorst insists that he wants to be given a new contract only on merit and not out of sympathy following his battle against the life-threatening Guillain-Barr� Syndrome.

"It's good to hear that and the gaffer knows that I maybe won't be interested in signing another deal out of sympathy," said the 30-year-old.

"I want to merit a new deal, so if I'm no good to the team then I don't want to be given a new deal.

"I know I've got another four or five months left on my contract and I've just been taking great pleasure out of this."

Wieghorst scored the second goal against the Second Division side, his first since October 1999.

"It's been a while and so long since I last scored that I didn't know how to celebrate," he said.

Wieghorst recently offered his assistance to Babbel as he makes his own recovery.