{"id":526345,"date":"2026-04-12T05:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T05:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/526345\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T05:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T05:36:12","slug":"martin-oneill-flags-celtic-concern-after-st-mirren-win-ahead-of-scottish-cup-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/526345\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin O\u2019Neill flags Celtic concern after St Mirren win ahead of Scottish Cup week"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/ Add as preferred source on Google <\/a> <\/p>\n

Celtic\u2019s win over St Mirren was a turgid performance that even the Green Brigade will be willing to forget.<\/p>\n

The return of the Celtic Ultras<\/a> was billed as a move that would inspire Martin O\u2019Neill\u2019s title push with a big win against the Buddies.<\/p>\n

And after taking an early lead through Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain<\/a>, Celtic struggled to break down the visitors and allowed St Mirren to have hopes of grabbing something from the game.<\/p>\n

However, Celtic held on to the narrow win<\/a> to close the gap to Hearts to just one point after their draw with Motherwell at Tynecastle and Martin O\u2019Neill<\/a> has reacted to the Parkhead win that puts his side right in the title fight once again.<\/p>\n

Thoughts on the 1-0 win? <\/p>\n

Is it really all just about the result?<\/p>\n

\"Alex Martin O\u2019Neill \u2018concerned\u2019 over Celtic\u2019s energy levels in St Mirren win<\/p>\n

The Celtic<\/a> boss was delighted with the win, but knows that better performances will be a must heading into the top-six split fixtures.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill told BBC Radio Scotland<\/a>, \u201cOkay, well, naturally, I\u2019m delighted that we won the game, which is the most important thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought that energy levels obviously concerned me a bit. I thought that we didn\u2019t seem to have that lesson. We\u2019re in long periods in the second half where they were in control. And really, I think that was the thing. <\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, we dug in, we kept a clean sheet, we defended strongly on the set plays and so we\u2019ve won. So we can learn a lot from the game. Take some things that I feel that are obviously very important for us into the semifinal.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut St Mirren played strongly. Played very well indeed. Came here and set up. Did well. Played through us a number of times, and well done there. From that viewpoint, we won, and there\u2019s things that we can improve. We were, I thought we were all set up at the start of the game. I really thought that we were ready for it. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, players in the dressing room wanting to go and put on a performance, as much as anything else, as well, with the crowd, who were great today, kept with us, really when they could have been annoyed with some of our play. That nervousness just seemed to build again. And I suppose it\u2019s natural when you don\u2019t get the second goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

And on the nervousness in the stadium towards the end of the 1-0 win, \u201cYeah, that is understandable in the last 10 or 12-15, minutes of the game, that is understandable so you haven\u2019t got that second goal, so you\u2019re hanging on, you don\u2019t want some mishap at the other end. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just thought our energy dropped well be well below that in that centre, or before the last 10 or 15 minutes. But we\u2019ll get it back. Honestly, we will. We\u2019ll get it back. We\u2019ll be stronger for the semi-final. And we\u2019ll get going again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just disappointed in that, but not in the result, which is everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Celtic look forward to Hampden date vs St Mirren<\/p>\n

With league duty out of the way, Celtic now look forward to another tie against St Mirren in the Scottish Cup next weekend.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill has the opportunity to take Celtic forward to win a league and Scottish Cup double this season and the win today, despite it not being pretty, will instil more belief in a team that is clearly running out of steam.<\/p>\n

If O\u2019Neill can get Celtic over the line with not just the title, but with the cup as well, this will be a great achievement by the Hoops boss who has watched his side struggle to yet another turgid win this season.<\/p>\n

Join Our Newsletter<\/p>\n

Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Add as preferred source on Google Celtic\u2019s win over St Mirren was a turgid performance that even the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,30905,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-526345","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-martin-oneill","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}