Celtic's Struggles Under Martin O'Neill: A Call for Change
The faith is fraying now. You can feel it.
For years, Celtic supporters have treated doubting Martin O'Neill as a kind of heresy. The man who steadied chaos, who dragged a faltering club back to silverware and swagger, was supposed to be the constant. But nights like this chip away at even the deepest loyalties.
Another heavy defeat. Three more goals conceded. Ferencvaros this time, but the story felt horribly familiar.
A pale imitation of Celtic
The scars from Ibrox had barely begun to form when Celtic walked into another beating. The same absent-mindedness in midfield. The same loose, jittery defending. Passes played for safety rather than purpose. A team that once lived off tempo and bravery now moving the ball like it was something to be feared.
There were spells, at 3-1 down, when they tried to rouse themselves. Shots from distance, hopeful swipes from players short on belief. Nothing that resembled the coordinated surges, the pressing in packs, the relentlessness that defined the best of the Ange Postecoglou era.
Back then, Celtic were a storm. Aggressive, inventive, forever dragging defenders into places they hated. All risk and reward, all pace and conviction.
This version is a shadow. Slower. Safer. Easier to play against.
Scottish football can flip in a heartbeat, of course. One performance, one result, and the narrative changes. But right now, as the second Old Firm instalment looms at Celtic Park on Sunday, the uncertainty is real. The venue and the expectation of a reaction from O'Neill’s players keep the contest hard to call. The evidence of the past fortnight points the other way.
Five goals shipped against LASK. A desperate afternoon at Ibrox. And now this.
Old ghosts, new problems
At times on Thursday, the football dragged supporters back to some of the grimmest European memories of the past decade. Cluj and Copenhagen in 2019 and 2020. Sparta Prague in 2020. Legia Warsaw, Salzburg, Maribor. Those nights when Celtic looked brittle, naïve, and miles off the standard.
The pattern was the same: energy levels on the floor, the booing rising, and a team with no convincing answers.
O'Neill fronted up afterwards. He spoke of frustration, failure, psychological damage. Of how these moments hit hard and challenge your resolve. He promised Celtic would “get ourselves together” for Rangers, but the words came out flat, drained of the force that once made him such a compelling figure.
He listed the shortcomings. He saw what everyone else saw. But he did not sound like a man brimming with solutions. His post-match demeanour echoed his team’s performance – heavy, stale, disheartening.
This is the same manager who, in his first spell, turned Celtic into a serial winner, and who, on his return last season, walked into disorder and restored clarity and belief. His personality gave the squad an edge. They were rarely beautiful, but they were brutally hard to beat. On the title run-in, nobody managed it.
That resilience now feels distant, like something from a different era rather than last spring.
Soft goals, soft centre
The game itself offered a neat summary of where Celtic are.
They started reasonably well, then conceded a soft opener. They dragged themselves level with a brief flash of quality, only to retreat into bad habits again. Sideways passes, no real daring, just a flicker of emotion and fire when the situation demanded a blaze.
The second goal, just before half-time, was the kind that poor sides concede. A loose ball not attacked with conviction. A cross allowed too easily. Confusion and disarray at the heart of the box as Ferencvaros punished them.
Celtic had 62.5% of the ball in that first half. They still went in 2-1 down. Possession without menace, control without conviction.
Camilo Duran, preferred through the middle ahead of Kasper Hogh, managed only eight touches before the break. In his favoured position, he offered almost nothing. The forward who had embraced Glasgow and started brightly now looks like a drained version of himself.
Hogh’s decline is even more stark. This is a striker who scored against Man City (twice), Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan, Sporting, Porto, Jagiellonia and Olympiacos (three) for Bodo Glimt. A penalty-box predator, a handful for elite defences.
In a Celtic shirt he looks awkward, his first touch betraying him, starved of service and short on confidence. One scoring appearance in eight games tells its own story. O'Neill has not yet found a way to unlock an £11m investment.
Behind them, Callum McGregor, the captain and constant, is starting to look lost in the fog. When McGregor drifts, Celtic usually suffer. Right now, both are true.
O'Neill has the experience to recognise this and the track record to suggest he can fix it. But the urgency is growing, and his body language does not scream conviction.
Arzani’s strike, Celtic’s embarrassment
On nights like this, football’s sense of irony can be brutal.
Daniel Arzani, once a Celtic player who barely left a trace, stepped into the story with a goal that twisted the knife. Ferencvaros broke with ease, slicing through a disorganised Celtic shape that resembled a Keystone Cops routine more than a professional back line.
Colby Donovan had over-committed in attack and then sprinted back in vain. Arzani drifted into acres of space on the left, waited, picked his moment, and whipped a superb shot into the top corner. Clinical. Simple. Damning.
It summed up Celtic’s night: exposed on transition, punished by a player they barely remember, left to stare at one another in disbelief.
A broken side before Rangers?
O'Neill now faces a brutal turnaround. He needs answers, and he needs them fast.
Right now his team lack almost everything a serious side needs: ideas, conviction, composure, physical presence, psychological strength, creativity, ruthlessness, appetite for the fight. The manager himself looks drained of inspiration, the spark that once defined him dimmed by the weight of problems stacking up.
He has come through difficult periods before. His career is full of recoveries and revivals. You almost expect him to find a way again.
But this time the list of issues is long, and the clock is ticking.
McGregor has already admitted the team feels “a little bit broken”. Across the city, Rangers will look at that and sense opportunity. A wounded rival. A fragile defence. A Celtic Park crowd on edge.
Beware the backlash, they’ll be told. Beware the reaction of a proud club cornered. Yet for Rangers, the chance is clear: walk into the lion’s den and land another blow.
Sunday won’t just shape the title race. It will tell us exactly where the balance of power between Glasgow’s giants really lies.
