Martin O’Neill spoke to the mainstream media at Ibrox yesterday afternoon after Celtic’s penalty shoot-out win over the Rangers in the Scottish Cup quarterfinal to set up a semi-final against St Mirren next month. Here’s everything that was said by the Celtic manager…
Q: Martin, a fantastic result, but overshadowed by the scenes at the end. What did you make of it all, and how disappointing was it to see the game end in that fashion?
Martin O’Neill: “Well, it was a big derby game. I think there was a lot of jubilation at us winning. Obviously, the fans spilled over. I suppose it’s very difficult to quell that if that’s the case, I don’t know. But I thought that might have been, maybe it should be the first question, maybe it shouldn’t be. I thought it might be your third question. I just thought that the team were absolutely fantastic. We were in our fourth game in ten days, we were absolutely out on our feet. We defended magnificently for long periods of the game and eventually came through.”
Q: Just from a Celtic point of view, can you check all of your players and staff are all safe, all okay?
Martin O’Neill: “I think as we were making our way back, I think there was some sort of fracas; somebody tried to get on the field. I don’t know, all I saw was there was a bit of a scrum down at the bottom. And as you say, maybe it does taint proceedings, but I think there’s an element of self-protection in that one. So if that’s the case, please, I’m making judgments here on things that I only half saw. But from my viewpoint, it was a great, great win for us. We were under pressure during the course of the game. As you would expect, Rangers are very strong. They’ve had the full week to go at it. We’ve had to travel to Aberdeen, it was our fourth away game in ten days. It was a fantastic effort by the players, really, really fantastic.”
Q: Martin, does it greatly upset you that those scenes are going to overshadow the performance?
Martin O’Neill: “I think that would be a worry. For me, from a distance, I’ve been saying that the fixture itself is still a phenomenal fixture. There’s no question about that. It had lost a bit of its lustre because the away fans, the full complement of away fans, weren’t allowed in. And I have no idea what might happen. So from that viewpoint, yes, because I think today with the crowd, with our crowd there, I thought it was really, to me, it was a proper Old Firm game in that sense. But we’ll see what develops.”
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