SUBS –
Yang of Celtic looks dejected during the UEFA Europa League 2025/26 Knockout Play-off First Leg match between Celtic FC and VfB Stuttgart at Celtic Park on February 19, 2026. (Photo by WM Sport Media/Getty Images)
YING – N/A – There’s a buzz about the place. Well, it’s a pretty solitary one but encouraging to see the bhoy give it a go, fearless. Others, take note.
HAKUNA HATATE – N/A – Would the introductuion of Reo give us some balance, a touch of quality? Yes, and no. Passing improved across the mid but the complement of personnel yet again failed to impose versus their
numbers.
ITCHYCOO PARK – N/A – Maybe if Keleche was years younger and a yard faster he’d have nicked a late one ahead of their keeper.
Stuttgart celebrations. Celtic v VFB Stuttgart at Celtic Park during the UEFA Europa League 2025/26 Knockout Play-off First Leg match between Celtic FC and VfB Stuttgart at Celtic Park on February 19, 2026. (Photo by WM Sport Media/Getty Images)
SCRATCHY – N/A – Welcome, mad one. Could have scored the goal of the night with an audacious thrity yarder, and should have scored the last goal of the night with a perfect set-up for his left peg at the death. But he blazed it high and gone in true existential South American revolutionary-artiste style, as a physical performance-art metaphor for our chances in the tie…
HIGHLAND TOFFEE – N/A – Like Reo, Luke popped in and added a bit of extra quality but not quite enough to invade their comfort zone. Maybe deserves a start, though; as much right as anyone now.
Martin O’Neill in the Celtic dugout for his 1000th match as a manager. Celtic v VFB Stuttgart at Celtic Park during the UEFA Europa League 2025/26 Knockout Play-off First Leg match between Celtic FC and VfB Stuttgart at Celtic Park on February 19, 2026. (Photo by WM Sport Media/Getty Images)
FATHER MARTIN AND SAMWISE GANGEE – 4/10 – Mr.1000 take a bow. And then follow up with a good kick or ten of some indolent wasters who let you down so badly on such a landmark night. It’s dire straits when the genial boss can’t get a turn out of a lackadaisical side; do they present a deaf ear or just face more of a psychological wall than we, or he, anticipated when up against reputed class?
“We were masters of our own downfall”
Martin O’Neill defends Kasper Schmeichel when looking back on Celtic’s tough defeat to Stuttgart and talks the lack of money for Scottish teams compared to the Premier League…
🎙️ @Becky_Ives_
📺 @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/ydqI0NBVQ7
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) February 19, 2026
In any case, it’s come down to this – a real and final test of his man-management abilities to get this unreliable collective back in any sort of winning groove for the season’s finale. I’d set Fozzy and SOM on them with merciless ferocity for a couple of days before Sunday, see if they react to unhinged madness and mumbling intensity any better than soft coaxing.
