Martin O’Neill has shared the ‘message’ he told his players that inspired Celtic to hammer Falkirk 4-0.
The interim Celtic boss was in fine form in his post-match press conference as O’Neill had the press room in stitches over his comments about Hearts challenging for the title.
The performance in the win against Falkirk is a far cry from what Celtic fans have been watching over the course of the last few weeks and many now head into the Rangers game with much greater confidence this weekend.
So what did O’Neill say to the players before the game to draw out such a fine display? Here, O’Neill shares all.
Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty ImagesMartin O’Neill rallied his Celtic team with superb ‘message’ vs Falkirk
Celtic looked like a different animal right from the first whistle and whatever O’Neill said clearly inspired the players.
O’Neill said, “I said I know the confidence been a wee bit low and that’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Even the very, very best sides in the world if you’re not getting a result, confidence drops and players then stop doing things that they naturally would do.
“I said to them, there’s some of the lads in the dressing room in there that would have no idea who I was, but there were only about ten, I said to them we have quite a number of winners in this dressing room and that’s really important.
“And those lads have experienced some lows during the course of a season and then they fight back.
“The message was, just go win the game”
Celtic’s best player vs Falkirk, it wasn’t two-goal hero Johnny Kenny
Out of all the players, who was Celtic’s star man? Fotmob rated every player’s performance in the 4-0 win and here is how they all fared.
Schmeichel: 8.3Ralston: 7.37Trusty: 7.7Scales: 7.6Saracchi: 8.6Engels: 7.1McGregor: 7.1Nygren: 8.9Forrest: 7.5Kenny: 8.8Tounekti: 8.7
With one goal and two assists, Benjamin Nygren shone for O’Neill and it looks like the Hoops boss’ words really inspired the whole team, going by these ratings.