{"id":598546,"date":"2025-11-28T04:47:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T04:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/598546\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T04:47:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T04:47:18","slug":"martin-oneill-explains-his-thinking-behind-strange-celtic-starting-line-up-that-hammered-feyenoord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/598546\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin O’Neill explains his thinking behind strange Celtic starting line-up that hammered Feyenoord"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Celtic went into the Feyenoord Europa League tie with a very strange starting line-up.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Martin O\u2019Neill\u2019s Celtic starting XI<\/a> had the inclusion of Hyunjun Yang and Luke McCowan as Michel-Ange Balikwisha and Sebastian Tounekti were both left on the bench.<\/p>\n

Yang\u2019s<\/a> inclusion ahead of Balikwisha was an unexpected one, considering the Democratic Republic of Congo international winger was brought in to strengthen the side.<\/p>\n

Who is your man of the match from tonight? Let us know below! \"ReoPhoto by Dean Mouhtaropoulos\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

McCowan<\/a> took the place of Tounekti which surprised many Celtic supporters considering the Tunisian has been the club\u2019s main attacking threat.<\/p>\n

And here, Celtic boss Martin O\u2019Neill<\/a> explains the reasoning behind his team selection in the crucial Europa League<\/a> tie that saw the Bhoys batter Feyenoord 3-1 in Rotterdam.<\/p>\n

\"YangPhoto by Robbie Jay Barratt \u2013 AMA\/Getty ImagesMartin O\u2019Neill explains Luke McCowan\u2019s unusual Celtic position vs Feyenoord<\/p>\n

The Celtic boss watched his team batter Feyenoord in De Kuip and here, O\u2019Neill explains the strategy behind playing Luke McCowan on the right side in what looked like an inverted full-back role.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill told Celtic TV, \u201cI think the balance is always something that you\u2019re trying to grasp all the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is the most important thing to try and get balance into the side. And since, you know, obviously, since Forrest has gone out the side, we don\u2019t really, essentially have an out and out right winger in that sense. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo let\u2019s play an inverted role. Luke, can come in and do that there? He made a good impression when he came on in Saturday night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Are we feeling confident Celtic fans? Let us know down below Celtic boss laid down the gauntlet to Hyunjun Yang<\/p>\n

And as for Yang, O\u2019Neill appears to have great faith in the South Korean winger as he tells him he needs to find his consistency for Celtic now.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill continued, \u201cAnd Yang also, you know, helped make the goal in many aspects. So it\u2019s really for them. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s the more general point is for players to go and show what they can do. That\u2019s the most important thing. No bigger stage here than European football in that sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cYang has ability, but it\u2019s to produce that ability, not just once in a lifetime, but produce the ability every single week, and be the player that your capability shows that you have.\u201d<\/p>\n

At first, it looked like O\u2019Neill\u2019s team selection had backfired after Feyenoord took an early lead, but Celtic battled back superbly as Yang and McCowan put in a superb shift to ensure three crucial Europa League points were taken back to Glasgow.<\/p>\n

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Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celtic went into the Feyenoord Europa League tie with a very strange starting line-up. Martin O\u2019Neill\u2019s Celtic starting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[1811,94,79673,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-598546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-europa-league","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-martin-oneill","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115625516070123549","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}