Martin O’Neill revealed his pre-match message to his Celtic team ahead of last night’s Scottish Premiership match against Falkirk at Celtic Park…
Coming on the back of consecutive league defeats to Dundee and Hearts and the resignation of former manager Brendan Rodgers, the players would hardly have been in the best place collectively or individually ahead of this ‘must win’ match.
Yet the interim manager, who knows the job like the back of his hand, was able in a very short period of time, to transfer the style, attitude and confidence of all the players who got minutes last night and we’ll undoubtedly see the same for other players who have yet to take the field under O’Neill’s leadership. So what exactly did he say to the Celtic players in the dressing room ahead of their impressive performance and a 4-0 victory?
🗣️ “We played some great stuff”
🗣️ “For me, it’s made it much easier”
🗣️ “We’ll genuinely think about it now…”Interim boss Martin O’Neill is full of praise as Celtic beat Falkirk 4-0 & looks ahead to Sunday’s league cup semi-final against Rangers ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/RuJOYBeTuD
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) October 29, 2025
“I said I know that the confidence has been a wee bit low. That’s the most natural thing in the world. Even the very, very best side, if you’re not getting results, confidence is gone. And players then stop doing things that they almost naturally would do,” Martin O’Neill said.
“There’s some of the lads in the dressing room in there that would have no idea who I was, but they’re only about 10. And some of the other lads, I said that we have quite a number of winners in the dressing room. “That’s really important. Those lads have experienced some lows during the course of the season and then fight back.
“The captain, he’s a real quality player. But there were great performances all around today and this evening, just to win. So yeah, they becalmed my dreadful insecurity problems. To be honest, I’m delighted to win the game. But there wasn’t a thought about anything else.
“The job that John McGlynn has done with Falkirk is phenomenal. And I thought the opening 20 minutes, they’d broken through, could change the game. Schmeichel makes a really great save for us at 1-0. Those are big moments.
“Eventually we’ve come through and we did really well. So getting back to the message, the message was we’ve got to win this. We’ve just got to win the game.”
Martin O’Neill is back. Here we go!
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Celtic 4-0 Falkirk – St Martin of Parkhead as Hearts Start to Falter. The ongoing internal war was far removed from the mind of the venerated Irishman as he brought joy back to the faithful on a night where it could have all gone wrong…Story in comments below👇🍀 pic.twitter.com/NyhS4AP7tH
— The Celtic Star News Feed (@CelticStarMag) October 30, 2025
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