O\u2019Neill <\/a>arrived back in Glasgow on Friday afternoon after his side\u2019s 1-0 Europa League win over Stuttgart on Thursday night.<\/p>\n And he was stunned to learn Rohl<\/a> had accused his side of not going down in that tie with all guns blazing<\/a> despite getting off to a dream start by scoring in the opening 30 seconds.<\/p>\n O\u2019Neill will turn 74 when he takes Celtic to Ibrox on Sunday for an Old Firm derby of enormous significance. And he suspects Rohl, at just 36, is showing signs of inexperience ahead of the high noon showdown.<\/p>\n Asked about Rohl\u2019s take on Thursday\u2019s match O\u2019Neill said: \u201cI\u2019ve just heard it. The lads told me in the little TV room. He must have gone for a cup of tea when Daizen Maeda could have made it 2-0 after six minutes.<\/p>\n Celtic manager Martin O’Neill<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s quite extraordinary, an extraordinary comment to make, really. We couldn\u2019t go and win the game by playing them? You know, believe it or not, we tried to, we definitely tried to win the game, you know.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had another chance late in the game. I know it was only about three or four minutes to go when Seb Tounekti probably could have scored, and that would have been an interesting 180 seconds or something like that.<\/p>\n \u201cBut believe me, we tried to win the tie. There was no point in going there and particularly getting the lift that we did so early on, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n Rohl went on to suggest O\u2019Neill faces an \u201cinteresting\u201d decision over whether to stick with Viljami Sinisalo in goal at Ibrox \u2013 or return under-fire No.1 Kasper Schmeichel to Celtic\u2019s starting XI.<\/p>\n And O\u2019Neill wasn\u2019t happy about that either.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cI also heard that. I\u2019m glad he\u2019s really interested in the make-up of my team, you know. He obviously hasn\u2019t been in Glasgow that long has he?<\/p>\n Rangers manager Danny Rohl(Image: PA)<\/p>\n \u201cIt does feel like that. When he\u2019s hopefully been around for the next three or four years he\u2019ll know about it.\u201d<\/p>\n O\u2019Neill has already chalked up one Old Firm win over Rohl after overseeing Celtic\u2019s thrilling League Cup semi-final extra time victory at Hampden in November.<\/p>\n But O\u2019Neill said: \u201cYeah, listen, that was in the very early proceedings and things have changed since that there. But we did actually beat them and I don\u2019t think I mentioned the make-up of his team at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cHe didn\u2019t say it in a jocular fashion, did he? He\u2019s speaking like a fan isn\u2019t he? You know, he is the manager of Rangers.\u201d<\/p>\n O\u2019Neill has just 24 hours to work out his best team for derby day after seeing some of his fringe players thrive in Germany.<\/p>\n And that includes the key decision over Celtic\u2019s keeper.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cI thought Sinisalo did brilliantly last night, really, really well. Iit was good to see and it gives you food for thought at the end of it all.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really pleasing to see because he\u2019s a genuinely lovely fellow, he wants to do well and wants to be eventually the No.1 keeper here at this football club. That\u2019s his ambition, that\u2019s what he wants to do and he wants to be around for a number of seasons.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only way that you really find out about them is to put them in situations like last night and he came through with flying colours.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"O’Neill was left stunned by his rival’s assessment of Stuttgart win and took exception to Rohl talking about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,18282,129883,6254,596,105107,181065,113572,8998,9003,85,255762],"class_list":{"0":"post-510230","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celtic-fc","11":"tag-danny-rohl","12":"tag-europa-league","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-ibrox-stadium","15":"tag-kasper-schmeichel","16":"tag-martin-oneill","17":"tag-rangers-fc","18":"tag-scottish-premiership","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-viljami-sinisalo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0_JS398009498.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Rangers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0_Rangers-v-Heart-of-Midlothian-William-Hill-Premiership-Ibrox-Stadium.jpg\")
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