![\"Celtic's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/04e4f9a6-221f-4a59-8fd0-c893bc1ca425.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAfter scoring last-minute winners against Dundee and Livingston in their previous two matches, the Hoops again left it late as Julian Araujo lashed home in the seventh minute of stoppage time at Rugby Park to secure a vital three points in the William Hill Premiership title race.<\/p>\n
Celtic were woeful in the first half and trailed 2-0 after a Tyreece John-Jules curler and a Joe Hugill header, but hit back through Sebastian Tounekti\u2019s wonder goal, Benjamin Nygren\u2019s poked finish and Araujo\u2019s late intervention.<\/p>\n
In his 300th game in charge of Celtic, O\u2019Neill likened his side\u2019s resolve to that of his previous Hoops sides, though he admitted it was draining to continually watch his team leave it so late.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwenty-odd years ago, I managed a really fine team, who had loads of spirit, loads of determination and always saw it to the end,\u201d O\u2019Neill said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were many traits here about this side and they\u2019ve shown fantastic character, after a poor first half against a strong Kilmarnock side.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were 2-0 down at half-time and we never gave up.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can throw all the usual accolades around, but the players deserve them today because even at half-time, when we were so poor, there was still that feeling that we could turn it around if we could get a relatively early goal in the second half, and that\u2019s what happened.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Celtic’s Julian Araujo celebrates scoring his side’s late winner. Photo: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, it\u2019s unbelievably satisfying to win, and to win in the manner in which we did at the end was terrific.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that\u2019s the way you have to win the games, though, if you have to win them like that, you just can\u2019t keep doing that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s both worrying me and, well, it\u2019s not great for my health. It\u2019s really draining, honestly.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of these lads, my coaching staff, I look around, they\u2019re much, much younger than me and I think they can take the strain, but not for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 73-year-old revealed Arne Engels will be out for around six weeks, after the midfielder limped off against Livingston in midweek.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s his thigh and it\u2019s a big loss for us, absolutely,\u201d the Northern Irishman added.<\/p>\n
Kilmarnock boss Neil McCann, meanwhile, was devastated to see his side surrender a two-goal lead as they battle against the drop.<\/p>\n
Performances and results have improved since McCann joined Killie at the start of the year and they looked set to secure their third straight home triumph in the league before the second-half turnaround.<\/p>\n
McCann, whose side have conceded 11 goals in the past three league games, said: \u201cI\u2019m angry. Of course I\u2019m angry. I\u2019m so disappointed because I truly believe that we deserved something from the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s taken a bit of brilliance from Tounekti to get them back into the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second goal, it\u2019s so disappointing. We lost three goals against St Mirren, where it was just second balls bouncing in the box and we didn\u2019t deal with it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the last one\u2019s the most sore because it\u2019s right at the end of the game and there\u2019s a minute left.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d have been disappointed coming off with a point, to be honest, but the anger comes from not seeing that out and getting at least a point.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sitting here thinking I\u2019m absolutely gutted we got nothing from the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After scoring last-minute winners against Dundee and Livingston in their previous two matches, the Hoops again left it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5082,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-300579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-celtic-fc","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300579","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=300579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}