MARTIN O’NEILL has offered a timeline on the availability of Callum McGregor and Kieran Tierney after his two big-game performers missed the Scottish Cup penalty-kick shoot-out at Ibrox yesterday.
The influential double-act took knocks in the champions’ 2-1 win over Aberdeen at Pittodrie in midweek and were unavailable for the team’s second successive weekend visit to Govan.
The previous week, Tierney kick-started the second-half fightback with a clever header to halve the interval deficit.
McGregor and Reo Hatate took control of the middle of the park and the Japanese playmaker grabbed a crucial equaliser late in the game after twice being denied at a penalty-kick and the rebound by Jack Butland.
The midfielder, who had replaced Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain at half-time, made certain at the third time of asking.
SIDELINED…Kieran Tierney and Callum McGregor at Ibrox.
Thankfully, there was no such drama in the quarter-final shoot-out as Hatate, with the Hoops’ third attempt, fired into Butland’s left-hand corner as the keeper took off for his right.
Oxlade-Chamberlain, Auston Trusty and Tomas Cvancara were the other marksmen to seal a place in the semi-final against St Mirren at Hampden next month and the opportunity for O’Neill’s men to avenge the Premier Sports League Cup Final loss in mid-December when the hapless Wilfried Nancy was in charge.
The attention turns back to the Premiership on Saturday with the visit of Motherwell, 2-1 losers to Dundee at Dens Park on Saturday.
O’Neill is hopeful Tierney will get the green light to make a quickfire return, but remains coy about the chances of McGregor who has suffered a recurrence of the calf injury that troubled him last season.
The Hoops’ interim manager said: “Callum was feeling it in Aberdeen. I think the medical team were saying it’s something that was here last year and maybe has come back.
AIR WE GO…Kieran Tierney celebrates Celtic’s opening goal at Pittodrie – before the defender’s injury later in the confrontation.
“So the best thing to do was just to take him out of it. Kieran was certainly not right to start in the game.
“He might have been able to have come on, but I thought, well, who knows what might happen during the course of it.
“He might have been forced to go on after five minutes in the match and he wouldn’t have lasted. So, for us to miss two big players like that there and still come through was brilliant.”
Addressing the Tierney situation, O’Neill speaking to The Scotsman, added: “I’m hoping that he will be back for next week.
“Callum, we would just have to have a look. Before the game, when the two of them dropped out, it was a major loss.
“So for the players to compensate for that, it was brilliant.”
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