‘An embarrassment of an interview’ ‘Give it up Martin’ ‘should be questioning the board’ O’Neill gets it all wrong after Celta Vigo defeat
Martin O’Neill’s post match interviews are becoming as woeful as Celtic’s Europa League performances.
Last week the Celtic boss applied the most incredible spin to the second half performance in a 4-1 defeat from Benfica.
After a 2-1 home defeat from Celta Vigo O’Neill returned to the familiar target of the referee.
Georgi Kabakov from Bulgaria didn’t have a great night but neither did O’Neill.
Celtic are on a run of four successive European defeats far from the cutting edge of European football.
LASK Linz, Ferencvaros, Benfica and Celta Vigo certainly aren’t A listers. They are the sort of reasonable clubs that a well organised competent Celtic should be beating in most instances.
By comparison Club Brugge are on the back of wins over Lens and Inter Milan in the Champions League after being edged out by Aston Villa.
The Belgian’s are a club with a plan and purpose.
Celtic are an interim club with an interim manager and Chairman with a squad padded out with sub-standard loan players that will mainly be gone in January or at the end of the season. Just like the January job lot that interim Chairman Brian Wilson passes off as part of the strategy.
Strangely, or may be not, O’Neill never mentions recruitment or the lack of ambition from the Celtic board, or highlights ‘the owner’ when discussing Celtic defeats.
As Charlie Methven mentioned on the Business of Sport podcast Celtic are a club baked into failure. In a meeting with supporter groups last year Michael Nicholson was questioned about repeated European failures. His reply was the taking part in group stage football for 19 of the last 20 seasons was success.
Which goes a long way to explaining why Celtic haven’t won a UEFA knock-out tie in 22 years. Across three competitions, under six different managers, three of whom had two spells as manaer.
@footballontnt should be questioning why the board ripped the heart out of the midfield before the end of the summer transfer window instead imho https://t.co/HBSwoo2drs
— pablo capaldi (@pablocapaldi) October 22, 2026
Celtic are miles short in European football and make no proper effort to improve.
O’NEILL TRIES A FAMILIAR DEFLECTION TACTIC
In 11 Europa League group stage matches covering two seasons they have picked up 11 points. This morning they are in 35th place out of 36 in the Europa League.
You can’t cover that with having Benfica terrified for 45 minutes that no one else buys into.
From his media role, 20 months ago O’Neill watched Celtic push Bayern Munich to the 179th minute in a Champions League Round of 16 Play Off.
That came after picking up 12 Champions League points in season 24/25. Last season it was 11 Europa League points. This season Celtic will be in single figures.
Yet O’Neill won’t even mildly criticise how the club is run.
He accepted the manager’s job in the summer without making any demands in terms of transfers.
After the shambles of January 2026 he knew exactly what he was walking into. A phone call to Brendan Rodgers could have filled him in with more detail. Instead he trusted whoever is in charge to ‘get things over the line’.
Celtic now have the comfort blanket of the SPFL to fall back on. They have won 15 of their last 16 SPFL matches.
But step outside Scotland and the self declared ‘best run/most admired’ club in Europe are everyone else’s favourite opponents.
@footballontnt In the name of fuck Martin, the ref was a joke but we’re a team set up to fail at this level. Give it up ffs.
— DoireBhoy (@RJKH51)
@footballontnt We need to be better but the ref was shocking
— csenseisgone (@Ohyeahyeah93696)
@footballontnt An embarrassment of an interview.
— Sean H (@Sean_H1888)
@footballontnt It’s sad to see a man who gave me some of my best moments watching Celtic talk so much shite. The whole coaching team appears clueless.
— james c (@jamesy0891)
@footballontnt Give it up Martin
— Disgusting Mooch (@ShezzieStop)
Nonsense interview. Does he really think that we played well?
Would any of our players get in their team?
2 years ago we made progress in Europe, still it could be worse, we could be the worst team in the league.
To be honest,I thought it was a great result last night !
Hopefully, we end up with a couple of token points so that the parasites on the board who are sucking the life ,and the money,out of our club are left nowhere to hide.
There STILL seems to be way too many happy clappers who are willing to attend these humiliations,ABROAD as well as at home.
What will it take for these fools to actually do the one thing that keeps Dermot the Donkey and his men in grey warm on cold winter nights.
Just in case they still need it spelt out to them in big letters here it is again……………… .STOP GIVING THEM YOUR MONEY !!!!