Martin O’Neill Reveals Celtic Dressing-Room Message After Benfica Defeat

Martin O’Neill has challenged his Celtic players to respond following Thursday evening’s 4-1 defeat to Benfica. The Celtic manager addressed his squad after another disappointing European result, with the Scottish champions now without a point from their opening two Europa League fixtures.

Celtic trailed by three goals at half-time in Lisbon before producing an improved performance following the interval. Camilo Durán eventually reduced the deficit, although Benfica restored their three-goal advantage through Vangelis Pavlidis.

O’Neill subsequently revealed that he had spoken to his players about the importance of competing for places during the remainder of the campaign.

Speaking after the match, the manager said:

“You know what it is, I think it’s a battle for places. It really should be this.

“It’s something I’ve just said to the boys in the dressing room, ‘If you want to be part of this, you go and knuckle down, you be a part of it. Because we’ve got a long season ahead, we’ve got a big, big game on Sunday, another match in the league coming up.’

“Honestly, there is a steely determination within the group. It was tough, it was tough the first half today, but we got at them and we felt as if we could have done that a wee bit earlier.”

The manager’s comments followed a match in which several substitutes made important contributions. Haissem Hassan created Celtic’s goal, while Callum Osmand provided additional attacking impetus after replacing Sebastian Tounekti.

O’Neill also moved Durán into the central striking position following Kasper Høgh’s withdrawal.

Those changes improved Celtic’s attacking performance and have given the manager further decisions to make before Sunday’s Premiership meeting with Hearts.

Celtic return to domestic action looking to build on their recent 2-0 victory over Motherwell. The meeting with the Jambos represents the first time that the Tynecastle side have crossed the M8 to face Celtic since the sensational scenes of the final day of the season.