A second heavy defeat in four days has left Celtic looking short of ideas, short of intensity and short of time before Sunday’s derby at Celtic Park.
Let’s not dress this up. Celtic followed a shellacking at Ibrox with a 3-1 home defeat by Ferencvaros in their Europa League opener, and the manner of it was worse than the scoreline suggests. Three more goals conceded, more absent-minded defending, more evidence of a team that has misplaced whatever it had last season.
This comes only weeks after Celtic shipped five against LASK. Three heavy defeats in quick succession is not a blip, it’s a pattern, and Martin O’Neill knows it. Sunday’s Old Firm derby at Celtic Park is now the only fixture that matters, and it arrives at the worst possible moment for a side that looks, in Callum McGregor’s own words relayed after the match, a little bit broken.
The Performance Exposed Problems At Both Ends
Watch the tape back and it’s not one bad moment, it’s a full 90 minutes of it. Absent-minded midfield play, loose defending, negativity on the ball, no real grasp of pass and move, not enough work-rate to give themselves a chance against a side that should have been there for the taking.
Celtic had 62.5% possession in the opening half and still trailed 2-1 at the interval. That’s the damning number here – not shots, not territory, but the fact that dominance of the ball meant nothing without conviction to go with it. The equaliser offered a glimpse of quality before Celtic immediately fell back into the same destructive habits that undid them, conceding again before the break.
The third goal was the one that will linger. Colby Donovan over-committed at the wrong moment, Daniel Arzani – a player who came and went from Celtic without leaving much of a mark – was left with the kind of space you dream of, and he finished with the precision Celtic themselves couldn’t muster all night. As our analysis of the McGregor comments after Rangers touched on, this is a team lacking cohesion in the moments that decide games, and it showed again here. Compare it to the Ange Postecoglou years – aggression, ingenuity, pace, belief, defenders dragged into places they didn’t want to be. What we watched against Ferencvaros was a poor imitation of that.
The Evidence Is More Damaging Than Possession Alone Suggests
Individually, the summer signings offered little to hang hope on. Camilo Duran, playing through the middle, had eight touches of the ball in the position he supposedly favours. Kasper Hogh, a player Celtic paid handsomely for, has now scored in just one of his eight games in the hoops.
Celtic’s late flurry was hopeful rather than coherent – efforts from distance rather than anything built on pressing, speed or genuine belief. That’s the difference between a team that’s temporarily off the boil and one that’s lost its identity, and right now it’s hard to argue Celtic sit clearly on the right side of that line. Scrutiny of O’Neill’s selection at Ibrox is only going to intensify after this.
A Response Is Possible, But The Margin For Error Is Gone
To be fair to O’Neill, he has fixed worse than this before – not just in his trophy-laden first spell, but last season when he walked back into chaos and restored order and confidence almost immediately. That Celtic side wasn’t always pretty, but it was ferociously hard to beat, and nobody managed it on the run-in to the title.
Sunday’s fixture at Celtic Park does at least offer home advantage and a chance to put things right in front of their own support. But O’Neill’s tone after Ferencvaros sounded flat rather than defiant, and this current group looks short of ideas, conviction, composure and the stomach for a fight that once defined his teams. That’s the gap between what we know he can do and what we’re currently watching.
What O’Neill Must Solve Before Rangers
Defensive organisation, intensity, composure on the ball, a plan in the final third that doesn’t rely on hope – that’s the shopping list, and there isn’t much time to work through it. O’Neill has promised to get the team together, but on the evidence of the last week, promises alone won’t be enough.
Sunday will tell us plenty. Either this was a rough week that gets put right at Celtic Park, or it’s confirmation of something deeper that needs far more than a team talk to fix. Mon The Hoops – but this one needs answers, not hope.
