adminUnfortunate Celtic were second best in every department as they were knocked out of the Premier Sports Cup by their rampant neighbours.
Miffed Martin O’Neill has hit back at suggestions that Celtic lack the mentality to pull through in the big matches following their timid Premier Sports Cup quarter-final departure to bitter rivals Rangers.
In the first Old Firm encounter of the season, the Hoops were swept aside at Ibrox in a 3-0 defeat and were arguably fortunate not to suffer an even heavier loss.
They will have the opportunity to make amends for the setback when Gers travel to Parkhead in the Premiership next Sunday. Derek McInnes’ side currently sits five points behind the league leaders after the opening six matches.
Celtic were widely criticised for their notorious collapse against Austrian champions LASK in the Champions League play-off qualifying round last month, when they remarkably surrendered a 4-0 advantage to lose the tie 5-4 on aggregate, sending them into another Europa League campaign.
But speaking to Premier Sports after their disappointing display at Ibrox, O’Neill dismissed the notion that mentality problems were the primary reason Celtic failed to compete with Rangers on the day.
He said: “You keep talking about mentality, I’ll have to analyse it and see exactly whether (the loss was down to) mentality or not, I don’t know.
“We misplaced a lot of passes today when we were in really good possession, so that doesn’t help. That’s a technical difficulty in that aspect, that’s not mentality.
“But what happens is when you play enough bad passes, then the mentality hits in.
“I don’t understand why you would anticipate a victory (here)”, he continued. “We are coming to Ibrox, this is a pretty difficult place to come without one fan in the building. They won’t have fans in next Sunday (at Parkhead) so let’s see how we go.
“I came here 26 years ago in November time and got mauled 5-1. We had a really good side and had beaten Rangers 6-2 a couple of months earlier and never lost another league game after that.
“So we have to learn from these things. I am not saying that’s going to happen (go unbeaten again) far from it as it’s too difficult.
“But at the end of the day we have got to learn from this and that’s the biggest thing. If we can learn, then we can do something about it.”
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