Celtic's Champions League Setback: O'Neill Reflects on Failure

Martin O'Neill did not bother dressing it up. Missing out on the Champions League league phase for a second straight season, he admitted, is a brutal hit – and one that bites hardest in the transfer market.

He knows exactly what this means for Celtic’s pulling power.

"We know we are a million miles away from the finished article; that's absolutely true," he said, still processing the damage of a second-half collapse that turned a qualifying tie into a post-mortem. "We thought that anyway, regardless. But we felt that if we qualified for the Champions League, there would be players that would be wanting to come on that very basis. That's not going to be the case. But we'll see."

The numbers from the defeat to LASK were damning. They didn’t just edge it; they overwhelmed Celtic.

The Austrian side rained down 40 attempts on goal, racking up 4.8 expected goals and carving out 10 big chances. Celtic, by contrast, barely laid a glove on them across 120 minutes: eight shots, 0.5 xG, and long spells spent hanging on.

O'Neill had praised his team’s performance in the first leg and for spells in this one. He also recognised the quality of the opposition.

"When I see that we're short – and maybe talking about a million miles away – we played brilliantly the other night, brilliantly in the game; they [LASK] were a fine side too, scored some brilliant goals. And we came up well and truly short – particularly in the second half."

The turning point wasn’t a single moment. It was a slow, relentless unraveling. As LASK pushed, Celtic shrank. By the end, the tie felt like a mismatch.

O'Neill did not look for excuses. He looked inward.

"I'm responsible for this one. Without a doubt," he said. The comparison he reached for told its own story. His mind went back to Seville, to the UEFA Cup final in 2003 – a night that has lived with him for more than two decades.

"Naturally, it took me a long time to get over the UEFA Cup final in 2003, but this was majorly disappointing. In the context of things, one was a final which it would have been terrific to win; this was a qualifying game which we should have been able to get through."

One was a shot at glory. The other was a gateway Celtic simply had to walk through.

They didn’t. And the consequences, in squad-building and in stature, are only just beginning to unfold.