O’Neill Fails as Bipolar Celtic Collapse Again — Another Sobering European Night

I honestly don’t know what to make of this Celtic team anymore.

One week we are putting seven past Hearts and convincing ourselves that Martin O’Neill has turned things around. The next, we are watching another sobering European performance that reminds us how far we still have to go.

If anyone genuinely believed the Hearts result had solved our problems, tonight should have been a reality check.

And I’m getting fed up with these reality checks.

Johnstone Over Sinisalo — Why?

The decision to start Sam Johnstone ahead of Viljami Sinisalo was always going to attract attention, but the opening goal from Javi Rodríguez made it even harder to justify.

It was a point-blank effort that Johnstone should have dealt with. Instead, he parried it into his own net in what was a comical moment for a goalkeeper at this level.

Mistakes happen, but that is the frustrating part. What message does this send to Sinisalo? He has been given opportunities, yet another goalkeeper is brought in ahead of him, only for us to witness a moment like that.

Sinisalo is not beyond criticism, but if we are going to change goalkeepers, there has to be a clear reason for doing so. Johnstone needed to make that decision look like the right one. He did the opposite.

McGregor Invisible Again — Donovan Shows More Fight

I hate criticising Callum McGregor because of everything he has given Celtic, but we cannot keep pretending his European performances are beyond scrutiny.

Once again, he struggled to impose himself on a game where Celtic needed their captain to take control. We needed composure, authority and someone willing to drag the team through a difficult spell. Too often, he was nowhere to be seen.

The contrast with Colby Donovan was striking. The young right-back showed more urgency, more aggression and more of the fight I want to see from a Celtic player on a European night.

Donovan is still learning, and nobody should expect him to carry this team. But when a young player looks more determined than some of our established stars, serious questions need to be asked.

Hearts Was Never Proof That Everything Had Changed

This is why I was reluctant to get carried away after the 7–1 win over Hearts.

Yes, it was a brilliant result. Yes, the attacking football was enjoyable. But anyone who watched that game could see that Hearts were desperately poor. We took advantage of that, as we should have, but beating a struggling opponent is not the same as proving ourselves against quality opposition.

We have now seen this pattern too many times.

LASK exposed us. Mordor beat us twice. Ferencváros punished us. Benfica showed the gap between Celtic and a side operating at a higher European level. Now we have another difficult night against Celta Vigo.

These are not isolated incidents anymore. There is a pattern emerging whenever Celtic face an opponent capable of putting us under sustained pressure.

We can dominate domestically and still be miles off where we need to be in Europe. Both things can be true.

The Final 20 Minutes Told Their Own Story

What frustrated me most was how the game finished.

Celta looked the more threatening side in the closing stages, while Celtic struggled to find the urgency required to turn the match around. Rather than seeing a team desperate to rescue something, we watched another European evening drift away from us.

And look at the changes we made.

How are we supposed to make meaningful progress by bringing on a 35-year-old James Forrest, an out-of-form Sebastian Tounekti and Oliver Sørensen, who struggled to make an impact?

Forrest has given Celtic plenty over the years, but we should not be relying on him to transform games at this stage of his career. Tounekti needs to find his form, while Sørensen has yet to convince me that he can provide the midfield influence we desperately need.

This is not an attack on those individuals. It is a question about squad construction.

Where is the depth? Where is the quality coming off the bench? Where are the players who can change the course of a European game?

Stop Using Injuries as an Excuse

Of course, you can argue that Jota, Cameron Carter-Vickers and Alistair Johnston would make a difference. They would give us more quality, experience and options.

But I refuse to believe their absence explains everything.

Good teams deal with injuries. Properly constructed squads have alternatives. Celtic have spent enough money over the years that we should not be left looking so short of answers whenever a few key players are unavailable.

We cannot keep using missing players to excuse performances that reveal deeper problems with our recruitment, tactical approach and overall level of quality.

If our European ambitions disappear whenever three important players are missing, then we have a serious squad-building problem.

Our European Journey Is Over — And What a Disappointment It Has Been

Being honest, I struggle to see where our European campaign goes from here. After the defeats to Ferencváros and Benfica, another damaging result leaves us with an enormous amount of work to do.

Mathematically, we may still have something to play for, but I am talking about the feeling around this team. There is very little to suggest we are about to go on a European run capable of changing the narrative.

And that is embarrassing for a club of Celtic’s size.

I am not demanding that we suddenly become a Champions League contender. I understand the financial differences between Celtic and Europe’s richest clubs. But there is a massive difference between accepting those challenges and convincing ourselves that meaningful progress is impossible.

If you are happy with Celtic simply being the biggest fish in Scotland, winning domestically and accepting European disappointment as inevitable, then fair enough.

I expect so much more.

I want us to recruit players who can compete at a higher level. I want a midfield capable of controlling European matches. I want a bench that gives the manager genuine options. Most importantly, I want to see a club with a clear plan for closing the gap rather than constantly explaining why the gap exists.

Instead, it feels as though we are being conditioned to accept that making inroads in Europe is simply too difficult for Celtic.

That mentality has to change.

O’Neill Has Questions to Answer

Martin O’Neill deserves credit for the Hearts performance, but he cannot use that result as a shield against criticism. His team selection, substitutions and approach to these European games must all be scrutinised.

Starting Johnstone over Sinisalo has raised questions. McGregor’s continued struggles to influence European ties are concerning. And the lack of impact from the bench highlights the limitations of the squad he has available.

The manager cannot solve every problem overnight, but we need to see evidence that Celtic are learning from these defeats rather than repeating the same mistakes.

One convincing domestic performance cannot erase everything that came before it.

Celtic have been bipolar this season: capable of producing a brilliant result one week and looking completely out of their depth the next. That inconsistency is becoming exhausting.

The Hearts result gave us hope. This was another reminder of reality.

I don’t want Celtic to settle for being the best of a poor standard in Scotland. I want us to build a team that can compete when the opposition is genuinely good.

Until the board, the recruitment department and the manager start showing that they share that ambition, we will keep having the same conversation after every sobering European night.

And frankly, I am sick of it.