Martin O'Neill makes baffling comment after Celtic battered by Rangers

Martin O'Neill has made some strange comments about Celtic's shambolic performance in the Old Firm with Rangers on Sunday. The Hoops were dominated in every phase of the game, getting bullied by their rivals in a tough setting, at Ibrox without the presence of any away fans.

But there are no excuses for the lack of fight Celtic showed in the game, given how much it means to the two clubs, and credit to Rangers, they turned up and were ready for the physical battle, fighting tooth and nail for every ball.

Celtic did not, and they never got to grips with Rangers' style of play, which saw them press Sam Johnstone, whose distribution was poor again, and give Celtic no time to play through Mika Baur in the midfield, as they have done all season. Though it didn't help that Kasper Hogh and Camilo Duran disappeared and shied away from the physical battles.

But after seeing his side dominated for the whole game and fail to find any answers, O'Neill has claimed Rangers did what he expected them to.

"We were well beaten. The 3-0 scoreline doesn't hide it, it was a tough afternoon for us," said the Celtic boss.

"We were well in the game early on, even at half time, but they were stronger than us on the day and they deserved to win.

"I think throughout the first half we, in really good positions, gave the ball away, we had three or four brilliant opportunities on the counter-attack and wasted them. Everything Rangers did I expected them to do. Whatever way Rangers set up, they're not going to give me a call and say what they're going to do so we had to counter that.

"Next Sunday will be a different ball game but we've got the home crowd with us and if they make the same sort of noise as Rangers made today that will be very helpful. We can learn from this and that's the most important thing, we need to.

"If you've been beaten in the game you always think about selection. I will think about my own part in proceedings and then we'll see. I wanted people to experience this atmosphere and they certainly did today. This is a setback today and hopefully a learning curve for us."