NafisaAs Celtic charge into the closing stretch of a Scottish Premiership season packed with dramatic twists and turns, interim manager Martin O’Neill is hoping questionable officiating does not become the obstacle that derails their title push.
His side battled through several controversial moments during last weekend’s 2-1 victory over Hibernian at Easter Road.
Daizen Maeda’s opener was first chalked off for offside, while David Dickinson needed VAR assistance before sending Jamie McGrath off.
The ball also appeared to strike Hibs skipper Joe Newell’s arm moments before his equaliser.
Josh Campbell then barged Benjamin Nygren over inside the penalty area and the Scottish FA’s Key Match Incident panel later concluded it should have resulted in a foul and possible penalty for Celtic.
Although the Hoops left Leith with three massive points, O’Neill admitted he contacted head of referees Willie Collum after returning to Glasgow.
“I spoke to Willie. I’ve never done this, honestly,” he explained. “And this time I made up my mind, whatever comes or goes.
“I just phoned Willie. Just to see what his thoughts were on it.”
“He was appreciative of me calling,” added a smiling O’Neill. “I couldn’t change anything. But I was happier [after phoning]. He seems a nice fella.
“Now that it’s got down to three games, or four games as it was at the time, you might as well try and get the decisions right if you can.”
O’Neill did not hide his feelings over the major calls during the match.
“I thought they were pretty crap, really,” he admitted.
Discussing the possible penalty involving Nygren, O’Neill said: “That was absolutely definite. The boy has pushed him out of play. After the game was over, I hadn’t realised how bad the foul was.”
“It looked pretty clear that [it] was a handball,” he added regarding the Newell incident. “Let me put it this way. If the referee had disallowed the goal for handball, then VAR couldn’t have overturned it.
“I think the young boy admitted to everybody in the aftermath of the game that he handled it. Now he’s wheedling out of it. He’s saying, ‘I’m not sure whether I handled it’. Well, either you did or you didn’t.”
O’Neill’s frustration with the officiating extended further as he also criticised Douglas Ross for ruling out Maeda’s goal in the first half.
“The linesman on the far side is four yards away, and he’s still raising for offside,” the 74-year-old added. “When in actual fact, if he just allows it, VAR will decide it anyway, one way or another.
“And that’s fine, sometimes it can happen. The thing has happened very, very quickly. But just let VAR decide that at the end of the day.”
The Celtic moment that still haunts O’Neill
Sunday’s Glasgow Derby will likely be O’Neill’s final one as a manager. The Northern Irishman had believed a 2005 clash with Rangers would have been his farewell Old Firm game at Celtic Park before unexpectedly returning to the dugout this season.
That encounter 21 years ago ended in a 2-0 defeat for Celtic, with Gregory Vignal and Nacho Novo scoring for the Ibrox side.
“I don’t think it matters anything now,” O’Neill said. “I don’t think it will have any bearing in the game, in my mind anyway.
“Totally different set of players, completely different in almost every way. I can’t remember back then, obviously! For me, just try and win the game, try and win the match, and the same for the players.”
O’Neill failed to capture the title only twice during his five years at Celtic at the beginning of the millennium. His side missed out by just one point in 2004/05, while goal difference cruelly denied them two years earlier.
Despite defeating Kilmarnock 4-0 at Rugby Park on the final day of the 2002/03 campaign, Rangers’ 6-1 victory over Dunfermline Athletic saw the trophy head back to Ibrox.
Celtic suffered another devastating final-day collapse in 2004/05 when Scott McDonald’s late double at Fir Park handed Rangers the title once again after they won in Leith. Celtic only needed to match Rangers’ result that afternoon.
O’Neill reflected on those painful memories as this season heads into another tense finale.
“The time in 2003, obviously that had been tight the whole way through,” he said.
“We had a run in Europe as well, and then we had to come back and try and score more goals than Rangers. They were at home to Dunfermline, we were away at Kilmarnock, so that was tight.
“The one that I still have nightmares about is 2005. Having beaten Rangers at Ibrox, [Craig] Bellamy scoring the goal, and then losing to Hibs at home then going to beat Hearts but then just having to get the same result as Rangers who were at Hibs that last day, and we were at Motherwell – we should have won by about 12.
“Their goalkeeper was phenomenal. It’s one of those things.”
O’Neill dismissed suggestions that his side, or any side, can simply be accused of “bottling” league titles, recalling comments once made by former Manchester United captain Bryan Robson.
“Did we bottle it? We lost after the whole season, and Rangers won it and deserved to win it,” O’Neill explained.
“I remember Bryan Robson, who was one phenomenal footballer. When he became a manager, he was asked a question, I don’t know if it was about the Manchester United side that he’d been involved in and had finished second, and he was asked did they bottle it?
“He said, ‘Well, if we bottled it, what about the other 18 or 19 teams below that?’. So it’s one way of looking at it.”
Celtic have not sat top of the table since September. Should Hearts fail to go on and lift the title now, accusations of collapsing under pressure will inevitably follow.
But if O’Neill somehow manages to overhaul Derek McInnes in the closing weeks, he will see it as reward for his side’s persistence and quality rather than another team throwing it away and, ideally, without more refereeing controversy getting in the way.
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