Celtic manager Martin O'Neill believes today's visit to Manchester United is the best preparation his side could face before next week's tough Champions League third qualifying round tie against Ajax in Amsterdam.

The Scottish champions kicked off their new Premier League campaign with a comfortable 3-0 victory over St Johnstone on Saturday.

Now they have just one more competitive match, against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park on Saturday night, before they fly out to the Netherlands next week.

United are still more than two weeks away from the start of the new Premiership season, but they illustrated with three wins out of three on their tour of Asia that they are starting to motor again.

That is why O'Neill has denied that Ryan Giggs's testimonial is an unwanted distraction - and is aware that new signings Juan Veron and Ruud van Nistelrooy will certainly be hungry to impress against his side.

O'Neill said: "When we agreed to play in this match, I thought that playing Manchester United a week before a European match would be the ideal preparation.

"At Old Trafford, our players will have to go for long periods without the ball and do a fair amount of chasing, and that's useful experience ahead of travelling to play a team like Ajax.

"They'll also learn that when you give the ball away against a team of United's calibre, you're not going to get it back in a hurry."

Ajax have also yet to start their campaign in the Netherlands - but fired a warning shot with an impressive 3-1 victory against Liverpool over the weekend.

That result brought a change of heart from Ajax boss Co Adriaanse, who only last week claimed Celtic were the favourites to make the group stages, but O'Neill will not be fooled, saying: "Win or no win, it would always have been impossible for him to hide from us that he has an extremely good side there."