Celtic manager Martin O’Neill hit back strongly at criticism of his team’s mentality following Sunday’s derby defeat to Rangers on Sept. 13.
The manager believes this painful defeat had more to do with basic mistakes in the game, such as passing, than with mentality.
“You keep talking about mentality. I have to analyze it and see whether it was mentality or not. I don’t know,” he told Premier Sports.
“We misplaced a lot of passes today when we were in really good possession, so that doesn’t help. So that’s a technical difficulty in that aspect; that’s not mentality. What happens is that when you play enough bad passes, then mentality comes in.”
O’Neill was also frustrated by the assumption that Celtic should have won the match without any difficulty, pointing out that a trip to Ibrox has historically always been a difficult challenge for the Hoops.
He said, “I don’t understand why you would anticipate a victory. “We are coming to Ibrox; this is a pretty difficult place to come to without one fan in the building. They won’t have fans next Sunday, so let’s see how we go.”
“I came here 26 years ago in November time and got mauled 5-1. We had a really good side and had beaten Rangers 6-2 a couple of months earlier and never lost another league game after that. So we have to learn from these things. I am not saying that’s going to happen, far from it, as it’s too difficult. But at the end of the day, we have got to learn from this, and that’s the biggest thing. If we can learn, then we can do something about it.”
Callum McGregor Sends Brutal Message to Celtic After Rangers Loss
Another figure who spoke after the match was captain Callum McGregor, who expressed his disappointment with the level shown by his team, particularly because, in his view, Celtic looked like a collection of individuals, with everyone trying to do their own thing, in contrast to what Rangers showed, which was a team in every sense of the word.
“Was it one of the toughest times I’ve had out there? Yeah, because it wasn’t us. I think the difference between the two sides was you saw the team, and you saw a team of individuals as well,” he said.
“Rangers were a team, and you could see that. We looked like a team of individuals who wanted to do our own thing and play when we got the ball, not necessarily run when you don’t. That’s what you can’t do when you come here; you’ve got to run. You can’t defend with six players; it’s impossible.”
“We’re trying to get the message to everyone that we need to be a team, to be the team we want to be. And we need to find a way to do that quickly because we lost a big game in LASK and another one today. It’s not acceptable.”
Martin O’Neill Responds Strongly to Celtic Critics After Rangers Loss