GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - JANUARY 28: Celtic Manager Martin O'Neill during a Celtic MD-1 press conference at the Lennoxtown Training Centre, on January 28, 2026, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Craig Williamson/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Celtic paid the full consequences for years of laziness and complacency at Ibrox today. As endorsed by Martin O’Neill.
It was another LASK like collapse from O’Neill’s side as they crumbled again under pressure from moderate opponents.
The match was almost over when the Celtic team was announced at 10.45am.
For reasons known only to himself O’Neill gave a starting place to Sebastian Tounekti. And compounded it by picking Sam Johnstone ahead of Vil Sinisalo.
Every Celtic fan knows that Tounekti is a waste of a jersey. Being less bad than Michel-Ange Balikwisha isn’t a case for starting any Celtic match.
From the second minute Johnstone was a bag of nerves. Fortunately his pass to Kevin Kelsy resulted in a shot round the post.
Next up the Wolves reserve flapped at a cross, Liam Scales was able to deflect the shot from Kim Minsu wide.
Celtic survived to half-time only trailing 1-0. Dan Neil scored with a repeat of the type of goals that LASK scored for fun with a few weeks ago.
Tounekti was replaced by Hassiem Hassan but the script was set.
Camilio Duran, a class act striker was switched from being ineffective on the right to the left.
Further goals were lost in the 59th and 75th minutes. It could easily have been more.
O’Neill was the perfect interim manager after the board manufactured the resignation of Brendan Rodgers. Wilfried Nancy, another calamitous failure.
O’NEILL HAPPY TO TAKE ON THE CELTIC JOB WITH NO PROMISES ON SIGNINGS
In the summer O’Neill was appointed permanent manager because he is a yes man. No competent manager would work for a club with Celtic’s out of date set up led by Michael Nicholson. The Tounekti of CEO’s.
Martin O’Neill should be in the studio as a pundit for this game.
He’s been in the hospital already this season, he doesn’t need 50 thousand Huns singing his name.
The Celtic board wanted to appoint Tel-Aviv Keane and panicked and brought back O’Neill
This is on the board.
— Wolfe Of Parkhead ???????? (@ParkheadWolfe) September 13, 2026
O’Neill made no transfer demands when he took on the job.
He started the season with two new signings and Daizen Maeda sold.
Arne Engels was sold ahead of the Champions League Play Off.
Hassan and Mika Baur went into the tie against LASK without having started a match.
The inevitable happened.
HOW CELTIC REACTED TO LOSING OUT ON A CHAMPIONS LEAGUE PLACE
After losing to LASK Celtic made one permanent signing topped up by four loans and a short term deal for Jordan Lotomba.
The only permanent signing, Joel van den Berg never made the matchday squad today.
O’Neill will probably take the blame for today’s defeat. It is unlikely that he’ll be cracking any jokes with his younger admirers in the media room.
Next up for Celtic is the money-making exercise of playing Ferencvaros in the Europa League.
The team, squad and management are well short of Champions League standards.
Eight Europa League matches are likely to demonstrate that the secondary UEFA is too much for the world class club created by Nicholson.
O’Neill knew all of the issues and signed up to be manager.
He made no demands in terms of signing players.
He was content to sell off Engels and go into Champions League qualifiers with a squad lacking basic physicality in midfield.
O’Neill sent out a team at Ibrox still lacking that essential ingredient.
Only O’Neill knows why Tounekti started with the manager’s full on admiration for anyone in the EPL driving the decision to play Johnstone ahead of Sinisalo.
Celtic fans are in for another painful domestic slog. The Europa League is likely to provide further reminders of the danger of a strategy of being one point ahead in one of the worst leagues in Europe.
This week Celtic will turn on the charm to sell tickets for Thursday’s match against Ferencvaros.
This brittle team is close to imploding, only a win next Sunday in the Derby will prevent that from happening.
Yet another humiliation, another total collapse away from home. Can’t you see the parallels with the LASK game? Anxious, passive, unaware, weak, meek, often making wrong choices, not having any idea what to do, conceding the ball easily. Total lack of physicality and poor mental state. Easily bullied by half decent players. AGAIN the opponents are always first to every second ball. When defenders have the ball and play it forward, we always seem to have our backs to the opposition goal. Hassan and Duran with all their quality find it extremely hard to do something, getting the ball facing away from the goal.Â
There is something FUNDAMENTALLY wrong with the way we play. As long as the problem with this system is not addressed, nothing will change. Sevco looked like Barcelona at times. The same was in Linz. We give rivals everything on the plate. I’m thankful we didn’t advance to the champions league. We would have been humiliated and destroyed every single game.Â
The most important issue is that we have FAR MORE QUALITY than what we are now showing. Hogh regularly scored against world class opposition in champions league last season, yet here he looks completely lost, having scored in just one Kilmarnock game out of six against Scottish opponents so far! Starved of service.
After 15 minutes I knew we would lose. There is NO clear way of playing. Players don’t know what to do. This system 4-3-3 is terrible and ineffective with the players we have got. The same was under Rodgers. We were often outplayed at Ibrox. Do you remember when Clement registered his first derby win against Rodgers? The same scoreline, the same performance.
Nothing has changed. Players can’t cope with pressure away from home. Can’t start the match well, passes going back to the defence and keeper, or sideways. Midfield non existent again, McGregor Baur Nygren vanishing, like against LASK, can’t play forward and all hiding. With two Neil’s goals he’s got so much space with our midfielders posted missing.
All of them are totally lightweight with no aggression nor desire to get to the opponent. It only takes for rivals to apply some pressure and we are lost, hopeless and helpless.
All the midfielders look like they are all asked to be in a role they are not suited for. Carter Vickers, unaware of who is close to him, caught by surprise by a third tier German league striker. The keeper horrendous, my God, palpable anxiety on his face. May somebody spare me this deep pain and drive Tounekti away from Glasgow? Useless all the time and before.
It’s not gonna change. An absolute waste of a jersey, he can’t make even one forward run. Hassan did more in two minutes than Tounekti in all the first half. Did you see Nygren kicking the ball out of play in the second half? Donovan makes the run and he kicks the ball out. What are they doing on the training pitch? Nygren and McGregor are neither physical nor can they even get the ball out of their own half, losing it in dangerous areas.
They look quality against Kilmarnock, but here they looked like little kids asked to play like adults. The way we play from the back is atrocious. Scales to keeper, him to CCV, then to McGregor, then to the centre back again, then to keeper and he kicks the ball high onto the pitch. The best player on the park was a teenager, Colby Donovan.
That sums us up. And a great refereeing from officials. Sterling doing some sumo stuff on Hassan being all over him with his hands and Hassan gets booked, but Sterling does not! Absolutely amazing.Â
We have the same defence that we had last season. We played out from the back last season and couldn’t do it. We play out from the back this season and still can’t do it. People will say it’s the only way to learn is to do it but not when you have a big brown stain down your shorts
100% correcto mundo Joe.What an absolute shambles of a club from top to bottom.Sticking plaster fc and if O’Neil cracks another joke I think ile vomit into my club shop mug.
Can’t see why that is all on MON. Those players were woeful and not good enough. Hogh showed he could be a real waste of money, he was shockingly bad, yes he did not get a lot of service but his hold up play was pathetic, a real Jessie.
No matter what 11 Martin started with, it would not have made a difference. The truth is this team is weak with no physicality. Blaming it all on the manager is like pretending we have a great side who were sent out to not challenge and work. We simply have a poor side, no other reasons. Tierney cannot do 90 mins, CCV is too slow and too small and heavy to compete for headers with opposition centre halfs.
The midfield is weak as dishwater. This is all on the board, that team looked as if they knew they would get bullied and had no answer. Imagine having to take on the Ox and Forrest, two players well past their best to try to change the game. What a mess this club is in, but with a huge bank balance. Their levelling up is now working. Sack the board.
Editor: Who discussed the job, wanted to work for Nicholson and agreed that the transfer window priority was to generate a profit of £15m while covering up with five loan deals in the 36 hours before the window closes.
Answer- the guy cracking jokes to his giggling younger audience.
Yeah it’s on the board but MON is their yes man who wouldn’t rock the boat over lack of quality transfers.
That’s on him.
He could have insisted on more physical players but he didn’t.
That’s on him to.
Nobody knows how he feels about the board behind the scenes. No matter what you think of MON, the reason he is manager is the board. No point in slagging an old man, he shouldn’t be in that pressure environment at his age. The shame is all on the board. They have set him up to take flak for their incompetence
Tounekti the Tunisian Mickey Johnson
What happened to “were gonna pump them” the team ain’t changed since last season.Same defence, no dig in middle of the park and still plays 1 up front.
If we are all being honest with ourselves, this was always gonna happen.
We know what we have all been watching this season already, apart from mauling a totally inept killie, we have been just as inept ourselves.
God only knows how we remain unbeaten in the league.
For a start we seem unable to play two halves of football, that has puzzled me for seasons now.
We have virtually no defence.
The back line has been ignored season on season.
CCV has never been anything other than a brick wall, and since his return from injury is totally devoid of pace, a liability against anyone who can run.
Tounetki as some have already said is one step up for Balikwisha, completely ineffective and unable to turn a game, a waste of a jersey.
We simply have not had a midfield enforcer since Broony left, Calmac has been a terrific servant but he just ain’t a Broony or a Lennon and he looks about done now.
We lack grit in general, and have done for far too long, look at Baur ffs, he looks like he’s just out of under 14’s, who’s he gonna noise up?
We have no fight, no spirit, no dig.
Right now on that performance, and the boost that has given them, they will roll us over at home even with no fans.
Plenty rattling on about MON and getting rid, well if even if he goes, what difference is it gonna make?
It’s the same players and there’s only so many ways u can shuffle that pack.
Perhaps it would make some kind of sense to freshen it up, but IMHO, MON staying was all about giving Maloney another season so he walks into the job.
We might have spent big cash, Sevco might have bought wholesale, but sometimes it’s just about grit and determination and belief…and they have buckets more of it than us at the moment.
I would go as far to say Joe that saying MON is to 100% to blame is an incredible thing to say. The group of players is the problem. We have no defence or midfield and so far our forward line has only been effective against SPFL clubs with next to no budget. Does not bode well for the Europa league. If MON stepped down it would be Maloney in the hot seat. No ambitious manager will look at us ad our money grabbing history is there for all to see
Editor: I know a lot of fans are dewy eyed for Martin O’Neill but Seville was 23 years ago.
He knew the issues and problems, he knew that Nicholson was a chocolate teapot with recruitment down to his pal ‘the owner getting things over the line’.
Knowing all that O’Neill said yes please, didn’t ask for transfer reassurances and was happy with the squad being weakened for the Champions League Play Off.
This squad will struggle to 7-12 points in the Europa League, in the Champions League they’d take a good few hammerings.
O’Neill knew the deal, he happily went along with it.
Editor, so does that make it all his own fault to try. No matter what manager came in, the board would still turn a profit in the window.
Nothing will change until that board leaves whenever that will be. The board should not have given a 74 year old the option to be manager, who hasn’t managed in so long. Just shows how small minded a club we are.
Editor: I think you know my low opinion on the board. Rodgers could no longer work under their constraints, O’Neill agreed to it, has backed the board so it falls on him now. DD and Nicholson know that there is a very ver limited number of managers that will work under the Celtic set up/strategy.
No one twisted O’Neill’s arm, he wanted to work under Nicholson and Wilson.
Most (?) think Macinnes is a bang average manager,
winning 1 trophy in about 20 years?
Most (?) think the sevco team – and squad – is poor.
But, we got humped at ibrox today.
MON had nothing to counter Macinnes.
Nothing has progressed since BR did a runner last year – on or off the pitch.
Spot on Bob.
My first shout after they scores was …
THATS JUST LIKE THE LASK GAME !!!!
Baur ball watching and not covering his man…..he is not good enough !!!
He is second rate !!! Our midfield is wanting …. and what’s with this long ball rubbish to a midfield that just aren’t big enough or strong enough.
The team selection was ridiculous, with our best players out of position and not starting !!!!
2 Goals outside the box …..come on !!!
I blame O’Neil we had no chance with that line up !!!!
Lask lask lask and they did there homework !!!
Everything is all on O’NEILL he was the easy option for the board and they will s@@@te on him from an enormous height hell mend him,he has brought this on himself, we are bolloxed with this board but he’s just another complacent yes man. We will never attract a top manager with the Desmond’s in situ
I am fu**in ASHAMED to go out ma fu**in door tonight !
agree 100% with the article, they just copied LASK our midfield was totally overrun by LASK and it was the same at the death star. If he plays this midfield again then it will be the same result tomorrow and on Sunday. ONeil should have spoken to Rodgers before he took the job this season. Now he has been sold short by the board.
The club as a whole are to blame.
Recruitment was as usual too late leaving us short in midfield.
The players are not at it they are too passive in there aporoach to ganes and they make almost as many passes backward as forward
The coaching staff do not appear to have a cohesive planand cannot seem to change in the game