{"id":573269,"date":"2026-05-08T17:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/573269\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T17:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:10:09","slug":"celtic-maeda-fit-as-oneill-prepares-for-last-old-firm-derby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/573269\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtic: Maeda fit as O&#8217;Neill prepares for last Old Firm derby"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">This season, in two separate spells, O&#8217;Neill is unbeaten in three meetings with Rangers, winning in both cup competitions after extra time and drawing at Ibrox in the league.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In his first period at the club between 2000-05, O&#8217;Neill won 16 derbies, drawing three and losing eight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Celtic are on a run of four successive league victories, while Rangers have lost their past two matches to fall off the pace.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, Rangers did win on their last visit to Celtic Park in January when Wilfried Nancy was in charge of the hosts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When quizzed about building momentum at the right time, O&#8217;Neill was cautious.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I genuinely don&#8217;t know that,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The games that we&#8217;ve had have been difficult. So I&#8217;ve not tried to analyse that much about it. We&#8217;ve got over the line.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;But I think the Old Firm game looks after itself.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Addressing his future, O&#8217;Neill replied &#8220;most likely&#8221; when asked if this would be his last derby game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On his memories of the famous fixture, he added: &#8220;Just the intensity, the atmosphere itself, both at Celtic Park and at Ibrox. It really is phenomenal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The atmosphere at Ibrox where they scored two early on in the match, the place was really, really rocking, it compares to any atmosphere in Britain and probably in Europe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;And I think that could be echoed on Sunday.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This season, in two separate spells, O&#8217;Neill is unbeaten in three meetings with Rangers, winning in both cup&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-573269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573269","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=573269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}