Martin O’Neill’s Celtic team at its absolute peak

Season 2003/04 was a superb season for Martin O’Neill’s Celtic side, winning the domestic double and reaching the quarter finals of the UEFA Cup recording a famous victory over Barcelona along the way. The league title was clinched with an impressive 98 points scoring 105 goals in the process. We also won a record 25 consecutive games. We were absolutely clinical that season.

There was also the small matter of a white wash over Rangers, beating them in all four league games and knocking them out of the Scottish Cup. It was also the last time we would see Henrik Larsson in a Celtic shirt. The King of Kings was leaving to join Barcelona after seven amazing years.

Henrik was not surprisingly our top scorer that year, scoring a total of 41 goals in all competitions that campaign.

It was an emotional moment as he bid farewell to the supporters at Celtic Park after scoring two goals in a victory over Dundee United. He scored another brace a couple of weeks later in his last ever competitive game for the club in a 3-1 win over Dunfermline at Hampden as we won the Scottish cup to clinch the double.

Henrik was undoubtedly our star man that campaign, but his teammates were also on top of their game as we blew away the competition domestically. You could say it was the peak of Martin O’Neill’s brilliant side. Yes we had won the treble in 2000/2001, but this team seemed to be much more complete.

We of course reached the UEFA Cup final the previous year, but ultimately we ended the season empty handed. Maybe that was the springboard to the excellent season we enjoyed that next year.

The players who made up the spine of our team that campaign were also at the peak of their careers. Paul Lambert was 34, Neil Lennon was 32, Jackie McNamara was 30, Alan Thompson was approaching 30, Chris Sutton was 31, and of course Henrik was leaving.

We had some good young up coming players in David Marshall, John Kennedy, Shaun Maloney, Liam Miller, and Stephen Pearson who joined in January. Stan Petrov at 25 was also a first team regular, but we should have added a few more quality signings to complement them that summer.

Instead we did what we always seem to do so often and remained still instead of going forward. We replaced the greatest player of our generation with Henri Camara on a loan deal. We signed a past his best Juninho and an ageing Stephane Henchoz.

Maybe if we slashed the cash a little and signed a few players of proven quality then we could have achieved so much more. Instead we suffered an agonising title defeat on the last day of the following season and had a dismal European campaign. What could have been. It sounds all too familiar.