The 73-year-old thought Sunday\u2019s William Hill Premiership trip to Hibernian \u2013 which brought a 2-1 win for the resurgent Hoops \u2013 would signal the end of his Parkhead caretaker stint.<\/p>\n
But O\u2019Neill revealed before the match that he had been asked on Saturday to stay on for Wednesday\u2019s visit of Dundee. Frenchman Nancy was due to be named as the Hoops\u2019 new permanent manager on Monday, but the caretaker confirmed there has been a red-tape hold-up with the appointment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a wee bit strange, to be honest,\u201d smiled O\u2019Neill after the hard-fought victory at Easter Road that lifted the Hoops within two points of leaders Hearts with a game in hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was joking that whatever has happened to the paperwork, I have no idea \u2013 maybe I\u2019m hiding it!<\/p>\n
\u201cI only found out on Saturday, I genuinely thought this would be my last game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if Wednesday\u2019s match would definitely be his last in charge, O\u2019Neill said: \u201cYeah. In my mind, absolutely. But in my mind at 8am yesterday morning, it was in my mind that this was my last game.\u201d<\/p>\n
If all goes to plan, Nancy\u2019s first three games in charge will now be a top-of-the-table showdown with Hearts next Sunday followed by a home Europa League match against Roma and then a Premier Sports Cup final showdown with St Mirren.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are games to look forward to, I must admit,\u201d O\u2019Neill said. \u201cI\u2019ve not spoken to the man, but I\u2019m quite sure he would want to get in here as soon as possible, to get going, and at least on the back of good results, and the team now starting to play with confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill\u2019s side made it four Premiership wins in a row since he took the reins from Brendan Rodgers five weeks ago after first-half goals from Daizen Maeda and Arne Engels within a minute of each other.<\/p>\n
Hibs hit back with a Martin Boyle penalty after the break and the Hoops had to stand firm to close out victory.<\/p>\n
Hibees boss David Gray refused to blame goalkeeper Raphael Sallinger for passing to Miguel Chaiwa while he was under pressure from Reo Hatate in the build-up to Maeda\u2019s 27th-minute opener.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a gift, but it\u2019s not through them doing something that they\u2019re not being asked to do,\u201d he said. \u201cI take responsibility for that as well because of how we play.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe frustration probably comes from then giving Celtic a two-goal start, after a real positive start, in my opinion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen in the second half I thought we got a good reaction. Once we got the goal, there was only one team going to go and score the next one, I felt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely deserved to get something out of the game, apart from a two-minute period within the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 73-year-old thought Sunday\u2019s William Hill Premiership trip to Hibernian \u2013 which brought a 2-1 win for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-604144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604144","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=604144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}