Celtic's Martin O'Neill Aims to Reset Season After Rangers Defeat

Martin O'Neill has promised Celtic will “get ourselves right” as the Scottish champions try to shake off the bruises from Sunday’s derby humiliation and reset their season in Europe.

Celtic were taken apart 3-0 by Rangers at Ibrox in the Scottish League Cup, a timid Old Firm display that has triggered the familiar storm around Parkhead. The response has to be immediate. Ferencvaros arrive in Glasgow on Thursday for the Europa League opener, and Rangers are back in town on Sunday in the Premiership.

In the space of four days, Celtic either steady themselves or sink deeper into trouble.

“Every game that Celtic lose, there’s a crisis, and of course even bigger if you lose to Rangers, so we’ve done enough talking about it,” O’Neill said on Wednesday, facing the media with the scrutiny dialled up.

“Our players are disappointed with the performance, we could have done better, I think we accept that, and we just apply ourselves now again for the league fixtures.”

This is O’Neill’s second full-time spell in charge of Celtic, and he did not try to dress up what happened at Ibrox. The players felt it. The fans certainly did.

“We were disappointed ourselves, we disappointed the fans and now we just have to rise to the occasion,” he admitted. “We’ve got two matches in which to do so before the break. Two big games for us, Ferencvaros will not be easy, but we’ve done it before, we’ll get ourselves right.”

The derby exposed more than just a bad day. Five of O’Neill’s starting XI were experiencing the Old Firm for the first time, thrown into one of football’s most unforgiving fixtures. Some froze. Some faltered.

“I think it was an eye opener to some of the newer lads,” the 74-year-old said. “We’ve got to find out about players, about whether they’re capable of dealing with these games. Hopefully, over the course of time, they will be.”

That learning curve now runs straight through Europe and back into the white heat of another Rangers clash. For Celtic, the talking is over. The next two games will reveal how much of this squad is built for the pressure that never really leaves Glasgow.