Celtic's Struggles Under O’Neill: A Call for Response

The faith is fraying now.

For years, Martin O’Neill has been the manager Celtic supporters trusted to drag them through storms, to turn chaos into order and doubt into defiance. But after another bruising European night, that belief is being tested in a way it hasn’t been for a long time.

Four days on from their dismantling at Ibrox, Celtic followed up with another heavy defeat, this time to Ferencvaros, and three more goals shipped. The scars are starting to pile up.

A pale echo of the Postecoglou era

What unfolded was depressingly familiar. Sloppy midfield play, loose defending, a team unsure of itself on the ball. Simple pass-and-move football looked beyond them. The basics – intensity, work-rate, conviction – flickered only in short bursts, never long enough to build pressure or belief.

At 3-1 down, Celtic tried to rouse themselves. They let fly from distance, hopeful rather than incisive. There was no coordinated press, no real tempo, no sense of a side hunting in packs. Just pot-shots and half-ideas.

It felt a world away from the best of the Ange Postecoglou era, when Celtic played with a kind of controlled chaos – aggression, invention, relentless movement, defenders dragged into places they hated and punished when they got there. This version is a poor imitation, stripped of its daring and stripped of its joy.

Scottish football can turn quickly. It often does. That’s the thin strand of optimism supporters cling to with the second Old Firm instalment of the season looming on Sunday. It’s at Celtic Park, and there has to be a reaction to what happened at Ibrox. There has to be.

But the anxiety is real. Five goals conceded against LASK. Humiliation at Ibrox. Now this.

Echoes of Celtic’s darker European nights

At times on Thursday, the football dragged supporters back to some of the club’s modern low points in Europe. Cluj and Copenhagen in 2019 and 2020, with Bayo and Bolingoli part of a muddled cast. Sparta Prague in 2020, with Klimala, Ajeti, Duffy and Laxalt. Nights when Celtic looked naïve, brittle, and oddly small on a big stage.

Ferencvaros brought that same sense of déjà vu. Legia Warsaw, Salzburg, Maribor – the ghosts were all there. Energy levels dropped. The boos rose. You could see a team running out of ideas, and a crowd that knew it.

O’Neill’s reaction afterwards only deepened the unease. He spoke of frustration, failure, psychological damage – how these low moments hit hard and challenge your resolve. He promised Celtic would “get ourselves together” for Rangers, but his voice didn’t carry the conviction of a man brimming with solutions. It was flat, almost weary.

He listed the deficiencies – there were plenty – but never sounded like he had a clear route out. His words matched the performance: leaden, stale, dispiriting.

This is the same manager who, in his first spell and again in last season’s rescue act, imposed order and confidence on chaos. He made Celtic hard, then harder, to beat. They were not always pretty, but they were stubborn and snarling and relentless. On the title run-in, nobody found a way past them.

That spirit suddenly feels a long way away.

Possession without purpose

The night had started reasonably well. Celtic were on the front foot, saw plenty of the ball, and looked, briefly, like a team intent on repairing their reputation. Then they conceded a soft goal. One lapse, one moment of hesitation, and the doubts came rushing back.

They did find a response – a flash of quality to level it – but it didn’t last. Old habits returned. Sideways passes, safety-first choices, very little edge. Just a thin thread of emotion where there used to be fire.

The goal they conceded just before half-time was the kind that marks out weak sides. No real fight for the loose ball. No conviction in stopping the cross. Then chaos at the back – players out of position, minds scrambled, organisation gone.

By the break, Celtic had 62.5% of the ball and trailed 2-1. It was possession as a statistic, not a weapon.

Camilo Duran, preferred through the middle ahead of Kasper Hogh, touched the ball just eight times in that opening period. He was in his favoured role but never imposed himself. A player who arrived with such energy and enthusiasm for his new life in Glasgow now looks like a faded version of that bright start.

Hogh’s situation is even more jarring. This is a striker who scored against Man City (twice), Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan, Sporting, Porto, Jagiellonia and Olympiacos (three) for Bodo Glimt. A forward who once looked fearless on European nights has turned into an awkward presence up front – heavy first touch, no service, no chances.

He has found the net in only one of his eight games for Celtic. An £11m signing, currently stranded between his past reputation and his present reality. O’Neill, so far, has not unlocked the player the club thought they were buying.

Leaders looking lost

The worry runs deeper than one or two misfiring forwards. Callum McGregor, the heartbeat and standard-bearer, is starting to look adrift. When he looks lost, the whole side tends to follow.

O’Neill has the experience and intelligence to fix this. His career proves that. But he needs to find answers quickly, and right now he doesn’t look or sound like a man brimming with them.

The script felt almost inevitable when Daniel Arzani appeared in space for Ferencvaros. A former Celtic player whose time in Glasgow barely registered, now with a chance to twist the knife.

The counter-attack that led to his goal exposed Celtic brutally. Colby Donovan had over-committed, sprinting back in vain as Arzani pulled into acres on the left. The defending was frantic, uncoordinated, almost comic. There was more structure in a Keystone Cops chase.

Arzani waited, picked his moment, and whipped a superb shot into the top corner. Simple. Clinical. Damning.

A broken team before Rangers arrive

O’Neill needs a lot of solutions in very little time. Celtic are short on ideas, short on conviction, short on composure. They lack physical presence and mental strength. Creativity is sporadic, ruthlessness almost non-existent, the appetite for a fight in question.

The manager himself looks drained of inspiration. His career is a catalogue of comebacks, and there’s a temptation to assume he’ll find a way again. But this is not a minor tune-up. This is a major repair job.

McGregor has admitted the team is “a little bit broken” at the moment. That’s as stark as it gets from a captain who normally protects the dressing room.

Across the city, Rangers will have watched all of this. They will see a wounded Celtic, a manager under scrutiny, a support on edge. They will fancy their chances of landing another heavy blow.

Celtic Park will demand a response. Rage, pride, something. On Sunday, we find out whether this is just a slump, or the start of something far more troubling in the balance of power between Glasgow’s two giants.