STERN-FACED Martin O’Neill watched his Celtic players turn in another unconvincing performance in their 3-1 Europa League capitulation against Ferencvaros at Parkhead last night.
The last thing the Hoops needed was another quickfire collapse after the wretched showing at Ibrox on Sunday, but that is exactly what awaited the home fans in the opening tie in this season’s European adventure.
The players lost their way again and conceded two goals at the worst possible times – just before and after the interval – to push the team towards miserable failure.
To rub salt in the wounds, former Celtic winger Daniel Arzani, who spent two injury-stricken years at the club on loan from Manchester City, tormented the hosts for most of the evening and capped an impressive display with the killer third strike shortly after the turnaround.
Liam Scales had earlier gifted the Hungarians the breakthrough goal when he deflected in a low right-wing cross from Bamidele Yusuf, but that error was nullified with Mika Baur’s well-constructed leveller in the 44th minute.
Exasperatingly, the Hoops, with Scales and Cameron Carter-Vickers switching off at the same time, allowed Kristoffer Zachariassen to backheel an effort from four yards past the helpless Viljami Sinisalo to give his side the advantage again.
And Arzani waltzed past Carter-Vickers in a breakaway to expose the Hoops’ fragility and make sure the points were heading for Budapest.
With Derek McInnes’ Ibrox due at Parkhead for the vital Premiership confrontation, a frustrated O’Neill said: “We really need to concentrate now on Sunday.
“We’ll get ourselves together. We need to re-energise ourselves as much as anything else.
“It was a disappointing evening for us. I thought we started very, very brightly and flashed a number of balls across the box, but with no-one getting in the end of them.
“And with their first real, proper attack, they scored a goal. That put us on the back foot for a while, we lost a little bit of possession and I thought we became a little bit sloppy.
“Then we get the goal just before half-time and then, remarkably, concede in the minute that the fourth official has put up.
“So, instead of going in at half-time 1-1 and all to play for, again you find yourself behind. They score in a breakaway for the third goal and it’s a long way back after that.”
Images courtesy CelticPlayer.
O’Neill, speaking to CelticPlayer, added: “It was a disappointing evening, obviously, but It’s gone now. It’s not that I won’t be looking at it.
“Of course, I will do. but we’ve got seven more games to try and put something right in the competition. And really, all thoughts now are on Sunday.
“First of all, we have to find the energy levels up again, that’s the most important thing, so what we do now between now and Sunday morning becomes very, very important.
“We need a little bit of rest, we need to talk about the game and we need to try things that we think that we can iron out and improve.
“But total concentration is now on Sunday’s game.”
The champions go into the High Noon encounter with the opportunity to race eight points clear of their city rivals after only seven games played.
A third consecutive loss isn’t even worth contemplating for O’Neill and his players.
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