Celtic's Struggles Under Martin O'Neill: A Team Unraveling

The faith has been tested at Celtic before, but not often with Martin O'Neill at the centre of the doubt.

For a support that has long treated him as a near-untouchable figure, even asking the question feels close to heresy. Yet after a brutal week, the questions are unavoidable. A mauling at Ibrox, followed by another heavy defeat and three more goals shipped to Ferencvaros in the Europa League, has stripped away any illusion that this is just a minor dip.

This looks like something deeper.

A team unravelling

The pattern is becoming painfully familiar. Sloppy midfield play. Loose, nervous defending. Sideways passing with no conviction, no tempo, no belief. Celtic’s basics – pass, move, press, support – have gone missing.

At 3-1 down to Ferencvaros, they tried to rouse themselves. A few efforts from distance, a couple of half-hearted surges. Hopeful hits, not the product of structure or sustained pressure. Nothing like the Celtic that once suffocated opponents under Ange Postecoglou.

Back then, Celtic were all front foot and fury. Aggression, invention, relentless movement. They dragged defenders into horrible areas and never let them breathe. This current version is a pale imitation, a ghost of that side.

The numbers on Thursday told one story, the scoreboard another. Celtic had 62.5% possession in the first half. They trailed 2-1. It felt like a team playing with the ball, not with any real idea.

Echoes of old failures

What unfolded against Ferencvaros carried an uncomfortable echo. Cluj and Copenhagen in 2019 and 2020. Sparta Prague in 2020. Those chaotic, error-strewn nights when Celtic looked brittle and rudderless.

On Thursday, that same energy returned. Low intensity, high anxiety. Boos rang around the stadium. The sense of a side with no answers hung over the place.

The second Ferencvaros goal, right before half-time, summed up where Celtic are. Hesitation at the loose ball. Weakness in the challenge to stop the cross. Confusion and disarray in the box as the danger unfolded. It was the kind of goal poor teams concede, because they’re not switched on, not aggressive, not together.

And this is a team that has already coughed up five goals to LASK and been humiliated at Ibrox. The spiral is obvious. The timing, with Rangers coming to Celtic Park on Sunday, could hardly be worse.

O'Neill's flat response

O'Neill has built a reputation on fixing things. His first spell brought trophies and authority. His return last season brought order to a club that had lost its way. He gave Celtic back their bite. They weren’t always pretty, but they were brutally hard to beat. On the run-in to the title, nobody managed it.

That defiance feels distant now.

After Ferencvaros, O'Neill spoke of frustration, failure, psychological damage. He acknowledged the scars nights like this leave. He promised Celtic would "get ourselves together" for Rangers, but the words landed without force. His tone was flat, almost drained.

He listed the shortcomings. He did not sound like a man brimming with solutions.

In that sense, his interview matched his team: heavy, tired, uninspired. For a manager whose personality once powered Celtic through storms, that is perhaps the most worrying sign of all.

Key figures out of sorts

The problems run right through the side. Callum McGregor, usually the emotional and tactical heartbeat, looks adrift. The captain who so often drags standards up now seems to be searching for his own.

Up front, the picture is equally bleak. Camilo Duran, preferred through the middle to Kasper Hogh, had just eight touches in the first half. In his favoured position, he drifted on the periphery, a shadow of the vibrant forward who arrived in Glasgow with such energy only weeks ago.

Hogh’s situation is even more jarring. This is a striker who scored for Bodo Glimt against Man City (twice), Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan, Sporting, Porto, Jagiellonia and Olympiacos (three). A player with pedigree and a track record of troubling elite defences.

In a Celtic shirt, he has become an awkward, isolated centre-forward, struggling with his first touch and starved of service. One goal in eight games is a brutal return for an £11m signing. O'Neill has not yet found a way to unlock him.

These are not minor details. They are central pieces of the project, and they’re all pointing in the wrong direction.

Arzani’s sting in the tale

If there was an inevitability about anything, it was that Daniel Arzani would score.

The former Celtic winger, who passed through the club in a blur of injuries and anonymity, punished them with a goal that added insult and a fair bit of artistry. The move cut Celtic open on the counter, exposing them in a way that would have embarrassed a youth team coach.

Colby Donovan had over-committed going forward and then sprinted back in vain. Arzani found himself in acres of space on the left, took his time, and picked his spot. He whipped a superb shot into the top corner.

It was simple. Too simple. There was more organisation in a slapstick chase than in Celtic’s defensive shape.

Broken, and there to be hit

McGregor admitted afterwards that the team is "a little bit broken". It felt like an understatement.

Celtic are short of ideas, short of conviction, short of composure. They lack physical presence and psychological steel. There is no clear creative spark, no ruthless edge, no obvious appetite for the fight.

And the manager, the man they usually look to in a crisis, looks as if he’s straining for inspiration himself. His history says he finds a way. His current demeanour says this might be his hardest repair job yet.

Across the city, Rangers will be watching. They have already inflicted one bruising this month and now face a Celtic side wounded, fragile and under scrutiny. They will fancy another crack at them.

The old warning says: beware the wounded animal. On Sunday at Celtic Park, we find out if this Celtic side still has any bite left at all.