![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0_JS394216707.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHearts icon Ryan Stevenson reckons his old club\u2019s title rivals looked rattled at Tynecastle at the weekend<\/p>\n
17:45, 27 Jan 2026Updated 19:36, 27 Jan 2026<\/p>\n
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Daizen Maeda is frustrated against Hearts<\/p>\n
Ryan Stevenson has accused some of Celtic<\/a>\u2019s top stars of lacking the stomach to take this season\u2019s title fight all the way.<\/p>\n And the Hearts legend has pinpointed Daizen Maeda<\/a> and Arne Engles<\/a> as two prime examples of key players who went missing in the heat of the battle in a thrilling table top clash at Tynecastle on Sunday.<\/p>\n The surprise leaders had to come from behind twice to take a 2-2 draw from the showdown with the champions but Stevenson believes Derek McInnes<\/a>\u2019 side \u2018beat up\u2019 Celtic all over the pitch\u2019 and insists it was a case of \u2018men against boys\u2019 throughout<\/a>.<\/p>\n He is now certain the \u2018rattled\u2019 Parkhead side don\u2019t have the team spirit required to prevent Hearts from going the distance.<\/p>\n Stevenson \u2013 a special guest on tonight\u2019s episode of smash hit online show Hotline Live<\/strong> \u2013 has tipped O\u2019Neill\u2019s faltering side to end the season in third place.<\/p>\n And he has questioned whether the likes of Maeda and Engles have their hearts still in it.<\/p>\n In a blistering column for Record Sport<\/strong> the 41-year-old writes: \u201cMartin O\u2019Neill<\/a> isn\u2019t daft. He\u2019ll know the truth.There are players in his team right now who don\u2019t have the stomach for it anymore. People who no longer want to be there.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s got no choice but to rely on them for the time being but he must see their hearts are no longer in it.<\/p>\n Arne Engles cops abuse from Hearts fans <\/p>\n \u201cTake Daizen Maeda for example. He was a disgrace on Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cLook, I don\u2019t know what\u2019s got into his head because he was unbelievable for Celtic last season. I don\u2019t know if he feels he\u2019s been let down and denied the opportunity to move on when he wanted to. There can be loads of factors.<\/p>\n \u201cBut he\u2019s not pulling his weight, his body language looks horrendous and he played a huge part in the first Hearts equaliser by giving the ball away with a ridiculous pass.<\/p>\n \u201cArne Engles is another with huge question marks. Did Celtic really pay \u00a311m for that guy? If so it was about \u00a310.5m too much. And that\u2019s me being kind.<\/p>\n \u201cThe big picture for Celtic doesn\u2019t look good. They don\u2019t look capable of withstanding any of this or fighting their way out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n And Stevenson says Hearts will take a further boost from the angry fall-out which has been raging since Sunday\u2019s final whistle – and includes Celtic lodging an appeal against Auston Trusty<\/a>\u2019s red card, which was thrown out<\/a>.<\/p>\n He continued: \u201cI\u2019ve heard people who should know better spitting their dummy tits out over it and trying to make out that it\u2019s proof that the world is out to get them.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pathetic and, if I was inside that Hearts dressing room, I would know 100 per cent that we have got them rattled. I\u2019d smell blood from here on in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hearts icon Ryan Stevenson reckons his old club\u2019s title rivals looked rattled at Tynecastle at the weekend 17:45,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[1194,1187,1193,150518,18,19,17,92428,150519,1188,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-306847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-arne-engels","9":"tag-celtic-fc","10":"tag-daizen-maeda","11":"tag-derek-mcinnes","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-martin-oneill","16":"tag-ryan-stevenson","17":"tag-scottish-premiership","18":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115969311612797238","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0_JS394234898.jpg\")
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