Celtic's Struggles Under O'Neill: A Team in Crisis

The faith has not gone, but it is straining.

For Celtic supporters, questioning Martin O'Neill still feels close to heresy. This is the manager who steadied chaos last season, who dragged a broken group over the line and made them champions again. Yet after Ibrox and now Budapest, belief is being tested like never before in his second spell.

Another big game, another heavy defeat, another three goals shipped. Ferencvaros did not need to be spectacular in this Europa League opener; Celtic did most of the damage themselves.

A pale echo of the Postecoglou days

What unfolded was a grim rerun of the worst European nights of recent years. Slackness in midfield. Loose, jittery defending. Sideways passing with no conviction. A team that once thrived on tempo and bravery now looks afraid of its own shadow.

At 3-1 down, Celtic tried to rouse themselves. They let fly from distance, hopeful more than dangerous, shots born of frustration rather than the old, relentless patterns of pressing and precision that defined Ange Postecoglou’s peak side.

Back then, Celtic were all about aggression and invention, about pulling teams apart with pace and daring. This version is a cheap copy, the colours faded, the lines blurred.

The energy in the stands told its own story. Low intensity on the pitch, loud booing off it, and a familiar sense of a Celtic side with no answers. It felt very Legia Warsaw, very Salzburg, very Maribor. A throwback to Cluj and Copenhagen in 2019 and 2020, to Sparta Prague in 2020 – the years of Bayo and Bolingoli, Klimala and Ajeti, Duffy and Laxalt. Nights when the club’s European identity looked utterly lost.

O’Neill’s words match the performance

O’Neill fronted up afterwards. He spoke of frustration, failure, psychological damage. He admitted that nights like this hit hard and test your resolve. He vowed to “get ourselves together” for Rangers on Sunday.

The words were there. The conviction was not.

His tone was flat, his delivery weary. He listed shortcomings but did not sound like a man brimming with solutions. In that sense, his interview mirrored his team – leaden, stale, disheartening.

This is the same manager whose force of personality once gave Celtic a snarl. On the title run-in last season they were not always pretty, but they were ferocious competitors. Nobody could beat them when it mattered.

That defiance feels distant now.

Soft goals, softer mentality

The start in Budapest was not disastrous. Celtic had a decent foothold, plenty of the ball, and then gave up a soft goal. They clawed their way back with a flash of quality, only to sink straight back into bad habits: safety-first passes, little urgency, just a flicker of emotion.

The second goal, just before half-time, summed it up. Hesitation when the loose ball needed to be attacked. Weakness as the cross came in. Confusion and poor organisation at the finish. It was the kind of goal poor sides concede, and Celtic conceded it with grim inevitability.

By the break they had 62.5% possession and trailed 2-1. It was control without threat, dominance without teeth.

Camilo Duran, preferred through the middle ahead of Kasper Hogh, had just eight touches in that opening 45 minutes. Eight. In his favoured position, he offered almost nothing. The striker who arrived buzzing about his new life in Glasgow now looks like a man drained of joy and confidence.

Hogh’s story is even more stark. The forward who once scored freely for Bodo Glimt against the likes of Man City, Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan, Sporting, Porto, Jagiellonia and Olympiacos (three) now looks awkward, heavy, and short of belief. His first touch deserts him, chances barely come. One goal in eight Celtic games is a brutal return for an £11m signing, and O’Neill has yet to unlock the player the club thought they were buying.

Callum McGregor, the totem, appears lost in the fog as well. The captain admits the team is “a little bit broken”. It shows.

Arzani’s strike twists the knife

On nights like this, football has a cruel sense of humour. You could almost script Daniel Arzani scoring. A former Celtic player who barely registered in Glasgow, remembered more as a footnote than a figure.

He picked his moment.

The counter-attack that led to his goal was a defensive horror show. Celtic were exposed in a way that would have embarrassed a pub team. Colby Donovan over-committed in attack and then sprinted back in vain as Arzani drifted into acres of space on the left.

What followed was ruthless. Arzani waited, picked his spot, and whipped his shot into the top corner. Clinical. Simple. Damning.

There was more order in a Keystone Cops chase than in Celtic’s attempts to deal with it.

A manager searching for inspiration

O’Neill has solved problems at Celtic before, in eras both glorious and chaotic. He restored order, built confidence, and for a time made his side almost impossible to beat. But right now, he looks like a manager searching for inspiration as much as his players.

This team is short of ideas, conviction, composure, physicality, creativity, ruthlessness and fight. That is a long list, and the manager is not standing apart from it. He looks drained by the scale of the task.

Football can flip quickly. He knows that better than most. A defiant performance against Rangers on Sunday could change the mood in an instant, reawaken the old defiance at Celtic Park and buy him time to repair the damage.

But Rangers will arrive sensing blood. They will see a Celtic side that has conceded five to LASK, folded at Ibrox, and been picked apart by Ferencvaros. They will see a “little bit broken” group and fancy landing another blow.

Wounded animal or fading champion? Sunday at Celtic Park will not just be another Old Firm instalment. It will tell us where the power truly lies in Glasgow – and how much faith this Celtic team still deserves.