{"id":263771,"date":"2026-01-25T21:25:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T21:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/263771\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T21:25:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T21:25:16","slug":"trusty-red-at-hearts-gets-on-oneills-wick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/263771\/","title":{"rendered":"Trusty red at Hearts gets on O’Neill’s wick"},"content":{"rendered":"

Martin O’Neill was riled by the decision to send off Auston Trusty after 10-man Celtic were pegged back by Scottish Premiership leaders Hearts in an exhilarating 2-2 draw<\/a> at Tynecastle.<\/p>\n

In a match the defending champions could not afford to lose, they led twice through an early Benjamin Nygren free-kick and a Yang Hyun-jun tap-in just after the hour.<\/p>\n

But Hearts hit back each time through Stuart Findlay early in the second half and then in the 87th minute when Claudio Braga fired home.<\/p>\n

Trusty was sent off with Celtic leading 2-1 in the 77th minute after being deemed to have denied Landry Kabore a goal-scoring opportunity following a VAR intervention, having initially been shown a yellow card.<\/p>\n

It was the Hoops\u2019 first domestic red card since March 2024 and hindered their chances of closing their six-point deficit on Hearts.<\/p>\n

“I did have an argument with the red card,” Celtic boss O\u2019Neill said. “The referee has given a yellow card. Obviously, VAR\u2019s re-refereeing the game.<\/p>\n

“First of all, the ball is going away from goal, so the player has to get a hold of that and control it. And secondly, and more importantly, is that we\u2019ve got someone covering.<\/p>\n

“That\u2019s what the referee saw in the first place and he was pretty close to it. It puts you under severe pressure in the last 20-odd minutes.”<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill conceded the point was “maybe” better for Celtic than for Hearts given the red card and the fact they had also played with 10 men for the majority of Thursday\u2019s 2-2 draw away to Bologna.<\/p>\n

\"Celtic's
\nBenjamin Nygren opened the scoring but Celtic did not build on that advantage<\/p>\n

The Tynecastle stalemate caused Celtic to drop to third place, with city rivals Rangers moving two points above them.<\/p>\n

“At one minute to three, we had a tough time, and we still have a tough time,” O\u2019Neill said. “There\u2019s another game gone past, but we\u2019re still in it.<\/p>\n

“I was delighted with the effort of the team, because we\u2019re down to 10 men again. It was a tough old match. But the draw is probably a fair result.”<\/p>\n

After losing Kieran Tierney to injury in the second half, O\u2019Neill admitted the strain on his depleted squad “is a concern” as he stressed that “definitely we would need some people in” before the transfer window closes next Monday.<\/p>\n

Hearts boss Derek McInnes revealed there was disappointment in the home dressing room given the big chances they squandered.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re disappointed we haven\u2019t won,” he said. “But with how the game played out, coming from behind twice against a team of Celtic\u2019s quality, regardless of their exploits on Thursday night, in the cold light of day, it\u2019s not the worst point.<\/p>\n

“But we just felt there was a wee bit more out there for us.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m delighted where we are.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re well aware there\u2019s big clubs and good teams desperate to be where we are. We\u2019ve got to be ready for that challenge as we go along. I believe there\u2019s wins in us. If the fans keep that connection with the team that we had today, who knows where it can take us.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Martin O’Neill was riled by the decision to send off Auston Trusty after 10-man Celtic were pegged back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-263771","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}