O’Neill<\/a> admits the plan is to get key men up to full speed before they enter the mix amid a pulsating three-way Scottish Premiership title fight with Hearts and Rangers.<\/p>\nThe 74-year-old said: \u201cWe will try to get a bounce game for some of the players coming back. That was the plan for Alistair Johnston’s return from his time in Canada.<\/p>\n
“We were going to organise that and it would help. We don\u2019t want to rush people back but if they are feeling good and want to have a bounce game, that would be ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n
O’Neill lamented the current injury plight and named a trio of bonafide first-team talents who are unavailable.<\/p>\n
The Irishman has rued a lack of energy in recent weeks and can point to the absence of standout players whose seasons have been ripped apart by long-term injury.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI\u2019ve not seen Jota, Carter-Vickers or Johnston throughout my two spells. These are guys who have in the past been automatic choices.”<\/p>\n
O’Neill took a momentary pause from the title saga’s mania as he toasted fellow veteran Roy Hodgson’s return to the dugout.<\/p>\n
The former England manager \u2013 four years O’Neill’s senior at 78 \u2013 found the insatiable lure of a return to the dugout too good to turn down.<\/p>\n
And the Hoops boss admits he’s planning a chat, as he couldn’t resist a traditional one-liner.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cI was delighted when Roy got the job and I meant to give him a call straight away.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t want to be starting a trend now! I felt like a child by comparison when he was appointed but I was happy for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s had a couple of results since going in there and I was planning to speak to him.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"O’Neill is planning for a closed-doors friendly to give his returning stars some minutes before competitive action Martin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[12876,16602,2817,218,33844,30905,8058,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-529456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-alistair-johnston","9":"tag-cameron-carter-vickers","10":"tag-celtic-fc","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-jota","13":"tag-martin-oneill","14":"tag-scottish-premiership","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529456","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=529456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0_JS386319103.jpg\")
<\/p>\n