Martin O’Neill praised his Celtic side for finding top gear again – after one of the team’s buses failed to make it to Fir Park.The Parkhead men eased to a comfortable 2-0 victory over Motherwell thanks to goals from Camilo Duran and Benjamin Nygren either side of half-time.The win saw the champions return to the top of the Premiership table and end a run of three successive defeats in all competitions which had come before the international break.But O’Neill feared the worst when one of the two buses booked to take the players and staff from their hotel to South Lanarkshire failed to start.’News flies in quickly, doesn’t it?’ he smiled when asked about the inconvenience.’Yeah, we have two buses generally. I think that’s been a thing since COVID time. The two buses were at the hotel, but one of them didn’t work. And so we all piled on to the one bus as it should be really because players and management teams should really be going together. Benjamin Nygren scores Celtic’s second goal in their 2-0 victory over Motherwell at Fir Park Martin O’Neill feared the worst when Celtic’s team bus failed to start outside their hotel Jota enjoys his return to the Celtic team after 533 days on the sidelines with a knee injury’But we’ve had this idea about buses. I think Stevie Woods was telling me, way back we travelled to Ross County or something, there were six buses. Plenty of space in them anyway.’Asked if the victory might lead him to take just one bus in future, O’Neill replied: ‘That I genuinely don’t know. There’s a lot of staff these days…’O’Neill was effusive in his praise for a performance which was more impressive than the final scoreline suggested.’We played really well today, we created a lot of chances and from start to finish I thought we were excellent,’ added the veteran.’I think that we just had to refocus on the things that have made the team good.’I think that we fell short in terms of closing players down (previously), things like that extra energy.’And of course with a lot of players away on international duty, I was a wee bit concerned about that energy. But overall I was delighted with the team.’The first goal’s really important, a great goal by Camilo. And then it settled us down which was good, although I thought up until then we had a lot of possession. So in terms of chances, yeah we could (have scored more).’A lot of things have flashed across the box, a number of chances both halves, but delighted to win.’The victory was O’Neill’s 250th as Celtic manager – a run which began at the start of the century.’Somebody mentioned it earlier, even before kick-off. I thought to myself, that’s a bit presumptive. I hadn’t won the game at the time,’ he said.’I genuinely didn’t know that, but it’s nice.’I think that we have to take the criticism at the time. Yes, we lost three matches in a week. Two to our big rivals, the European games, so yeah. But we fought back today and let’s see what Thursday (Benfica) brings.’The added bonus for O’Neill was the return of Jota who came off the bench some 533 days after seriously injuring his knee at Tannadice.’I think he’ll be great for us, really great,’ O’Neill said. ‘Personally speaking, I didn’t think that he would be back as quickly as this. I was probably thinking more like end of November time or something like that.’But he’s been training with us for a number of weeks, played a half in the bounce game that we had last Friday and has come on there.’So, I’ve just spoken to him just before coming up the steps and he’s feeling really good, really good.’Meanwhile, O’Neill revealed that Cameron Carter-Vickers is unlikely to make the match in Lisbon with Dane Murray poised to play again.’He might not be fit for Thursday,’ he explained.’The physios and the medical team have told me that Thursday might be too early.’Come what may in midweek, O’Neill feels his players must be ready to face Hearts on Sunday with Rangers now without European matches this season.’I think that’s a big advantage for them in many aspects,’ said O’Neill.’I wanted Rangers to qualify for their competition just to play the games. It wasn’t altruistic on my part. I just wanted them to play the matches.’We’ll try and deal with it as best we can. Obviously, the most important thing for us is to stay up there in the league. But the European games, and I’ve said this before to you this time last year, it’s what the club are aspiring to.’Whether we’re good enough to compete here or not, I couldn’t really tell you.’Motherwell manager Alfred Johansson had no complaints about the outcome but vows he’s not going to panic about his side falling to a fourth straight defeat.’I think today we are the second best team, I think Celtic is the best,’ said the Swede.’We knew this start to the season that it was going to be a tough period because it’s a big change when you have 11 players coming in and at the same time you have many injuries in the players that actually were playing last year.’I think today we had four players from last season in the 11. So, we knew that that was going to be difficult.’We also are younger now than what we were last year, a couple of years younger on average in all the games that we played.’And that inexperience together with the fact that we also have players that then come from other parts of the world that need to adapt to Scottish football and the UK.’We’re in that moment right now. But in that moment we are looking forward, we feel that this is an interesting group, where we have far from tapped all the potential that is in there. So, difficult moments, they come and it’s how you cope with them and how you react with them.’So, our target is to be here in nine games and you asking completely different questions.’