Celtic's Champions League Heartbreak: O'Neill's Honest Assessment
Martin O'Neill did not try to sugar-coat it. Missing the Champions League league phase for a second successive year, he admitted, is a hammer blow – and one that cuts straight into Celtic’s ability to attract players.
He laid it out starkly.
"We know we are a million miles away from the finished article; that's absolutely true," he said, still processing a brutal night. "We thought that anyway, regardless. But we felt that if we qualified for the Champions League, there would be players that would be wanting to come on that very basis. That's not going to be the case. But we'll see."
The disappointment ran deeper than just the financial and reputational hit. It was the manner of the collapse against LASK that stung. Celtic had talked themselves into believing they were close; the game showed just how far away they remain.
"When I see that we're short – and maybe talking about a million miles away – we played brilliantly the other night, brilliantly in the game; they [LASK] were a fine side too, scored some brilliant goals. And we came up well and truly short – particularly in the second half."
The numbers told their own brutal story. LASK swarmed all over Celtic, racking up 40 shots, a towering 4.8 expected goals and 10 big chances. It was one-way traffic. Celtic, by contrast, mustered only eight efforts across 120 draining minutes, scraping together just 0.5 xG. For a side with Champions League ambitions, it was a sobering statistical mismatch.
The pressure built, the resistance faded, and by the end it felt less like a contest and more like an examination Celtic were nowhere near ready to sit.
O'Neill did not look for excuses. He stepped into the line of fire.
"I'm responsible for this one. Without a doubt," he said. "Naturally, it took me a long time to get over the UEFA Cup final in 2003, but this was majorly disappointing. In the context of things, one was a final which it would have been terrific to win; this was a qualifying game which we should have been able to get through."
One was a glorious near-miss on a European stage. This, by his own measure, was a failure to clear a hurdle Celtic should have managed. And with the Champions League door closed again, O'Neill now has to rebuild a squad and a sales pitch without the lure he knows changes everything.
