Martin O’Neill will refuse to “hammer” his Celtic squad despite their miserable 3-0 defeat to rivals Rangers at Ibrox on Sunday afternoon.
That is the view of former goalkeeper Pat Bonner who believes the club have too many massive fixtures on the horizon for the manager to lose his rag. The Hoops were soundly defeated in Glasgow to tumble out of the Premier Sports Cup and Bonner was stunned at just how bad they performed.
O’Neill, too, admitted Celtic have structural issues that he has to deal with as boss and come up with a fix for.
But Bonner reckons he will have to do so in a calm manner to ensure his players maintain focus with Ferencvaros in the Europa League coming later this week before another Glasgow derby at Parkhead next Sunday.
“Martin said it before the game, it will be a test for his players but it will also tell him something about them,” Bonner said on the BBC. “He won’t hammer them, that’s for sure.
“Not with the big games coming up. But he’ll be walking away from this thinking, ‘I’m not so sure’. That’s twice now this season, the game against LASK and this game here. Huge games and they did not perform. The goalkeeper looked very shaky today, almost nervy.
“Even with the ball back to his feet he’s going to be under pressure. They couldn’t build from that point. Then when he kicked it long it wasn’t accurate enough into an area. They couldn’t get hold of the ball to play.”
Bonner’s words will likely ring true with O’Neill appearing more mellow as an experienced gaffer.
But the Irishman will be quietly infuriated with what he saw at the home of his rivals.
Still, O’Neill is not blameless and the manager made some big personnel calls before the game which backfired spectacularly as some of the players failed to impress upon the action.
Red-hot Camilo Duran was shifted wide to accommodate Kasper Hogh while Husseim Hassan started on the bench with Sebastian Tounekti preferred on the left.
It was supposedly due to a lack of sleep for Hassan but that excuse won’t wash with punters.
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