Martin O'Neill has shared what he told the Celtic dressing room following their one-sided defeat at the hands of the Rangers at Ibrox.
The 3-0 defeat away at Ibrox against the Rangers has to go down as one of the worst results for Martin O'Neill as Celtic manager. And solutions need to be found.
Celtic had started this season brilliantly but the 5-1 away loss to LASK to get knocked out of the Champions League qualifiers seems to have had a real effect on this team. They have never looked the same since then.
The free-flowing has vanished quickly and it is back to relying on moments of individual brilliance and squeezing out wins, as was the case for most of last season.
What does Martin O'Neill think went wrong for Celtic at Ibrox vs Rangers?
Martin O'Neill has given his view on what he feels went wrong for Celtic against the Rangers at the weekend.
According to CeltsAreHere, O'Neill said leading up to the Europa League opener: “I said to the players, I’m not so sure whether Rangers beat us or we beat ourselves in that sense.
“You’ve got to put the work in, you’ve got to do it and you’ve got to do it every single week.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s a home game against somebody who’s at the bottom of the league or away at Ibrox. You’ve just really got to put the work in.
“That has defined Celtic teams in the past, putting this work in. That’s what we did at the back end of last season.
“Hopefully, this will be the last time I mention it. We showed heart, grit and determination to fight back, having been beaten by Dundee United, to win the next seven games, including winning against Rangers and Hearts.
“Some of those matches, I think we won through sheer desire. So you’ve got to have that.
“There’s no point in having all the talent in the world if you don’t apply the determination and the will to win. Sometimes that defines players.
“I’ve said this to the players in the dressing room, and it doesn’t hold all the time, but sometimes you can make assumptions on players’ character about what they do on the pitch.”
Celtic do not have any time to dwell on the result and feel bad for themselves, because they have significant games coming up one after another.
The next time they take to the pitch, it will be against Ferencvaros in their Europa League opener.
Then, at the weekend, Celtic face the Rangers once again, this time at Parkhead and in the Scottish Premiership.
It will be a mountain for them to climb to get a result against Derek McInnes' side, a week after losing 3-0 to them.
Is there a mentality problem with this Celtic team?
When the pressure is on, it does feel like Celtic wilt under it. It has happened far too often for it to be brushed under the carpet any longer.
O'Neill has talked about 'putting the work in', but is that just enough? Was it what could have prevented Celtic from losing 3-0 to Rangers?
If you ask me, there is a lot more that Celtic need to do than just work harder on the pitch. Some of the issues might lie with O'Neill himself.
Camilo Duran has been Celtic's best forward all season. And he looks like a consistent goal threat whenever he plays through the middle.
Instead of going with Duran as the number 9, O'Neill ended up picking Kasper Hogh as the one to lead the line. And almost unsurprisingly, he did not do well.
Hogh has scored in only one game he has played for Celtic so far. And against the Rangers, he did not look up for the physical challenge either.
That also meant that Haissem Hassan started the game on the bench while someone who has failed to impress for a long time now, Sebastian Tounekti, was the starter.
As a result, a lot of the performance might have been about the wrong selections that were made on the day.
