The champions have only had one free midweek in the eight weeks since the Irishman returned to the helm. And O\u2019Neill reckons his players have shown proper resilience in the face of hostility and a crammed schedule to set themselves up for a shot at the double.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThey have, and I think they should really get some credit for that. For the players standing up to it, I thought that Stuttgart was pretty hostile in that sense. They’re flying in the Bundesliga, so we did great there.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut to come back to Rangers and show some character in the second half and then to follow up against Aberdeen.. it might not have been the greatest game in the world, the pitch is just trying to recover from pretty lousy weather.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo for us to go and win the game was really important. It sets us up. And listen, at least after this we’re nearly down to just one fixture per week, which gives us a chance again if we can hang in. And that was the biggest concern about trying to stay in, hang in, in these matches until you got round to just one per week.\u201d<\/p>\n
The packed fixture list has meant O\u2019Neill has had to chop and change his starting XI to keep his squad fresh.<\/p>\n
But with the focus narrowing on a monster 11-week spell where the league title and Scottish Cup will be decided, the veteran boss has told his players permanent spots in his starting XI are up for grabs.<\/p>\n
Starting at Ibrox this afternoon. He said: \u201cCould very well be. If you can do really well at Ibrox, you give yourself a chance, don’t you? Of staying in the side.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0_JS398342132.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Celtic manager Martin O’Neill <\/p>\n
\u201cComing back this time, it’s just been midweek, midweek, midweek\u2026 And therefore, in your mind, can the players continue this and keep going?<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m not even sure that I would have played the same side twice in two consecutive games. Now, when you’re down to the one fixture per week, then it will really very much matter how you perform.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause you’ve got time to recover, you’ve got time to think about it. You don’t have to worry about rotation as much. It’s the injuries that concern you and the form.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill has Austin Trusty available for this afternoon\u2019s cup tie which will see a bumper 7500 Hoops fans head to Ibrox.<\/p>\n
But Celtic are sweating on the fitness of Kieran Tierney who began last week\u2019s fightback with a 56th minute header.<\/p>\n
Tierney\u2019s Old Firm know-how along with skipper Callum McGregor was massive in hauling the Hoops back from the dead.<\/p>\n
And O\u2019Neill knows the importance of his big game players being available again this afternoon.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cOh of course. It only takes you 10 or 15 minutes to realise how important the senior boys are who really stand up to it, who have a view of it. We’ve got a number of loan players coming in for really their first taste of it, really.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so very important that the boys around them can come to terms with it. It’s an electric atmosphere. It’s one of the great fixtures in world football to me. And regardless of the calibre of the team’s play, it’s still a really great fixture.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd for all the abuse that you would take at Ibrox, it’s still great.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fourth successive away day on Sunday sees the champions head back to Ibrox for a massive Scottish…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4100],"tags":[2628,94,79673,1946,2630,1638,7081,79,16,15],"class_list":["post-811274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-celtic-fc","tag-football","tag-martin-oneill","tag-rangers-fc","tag-scottish-cup","tag-scottish-premiership","tag-scottish-professional-football-league","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116191105330251439","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811274","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=811274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}