Champions League<\/a> game to him. Does he speak about the past? Not really. He\u2019s about being in the present, the past is in the past and you can\u2019t think about the future. You have to be in the present.<\/p>\n\u201cHe just tells us what we need to do to win the game and we get ourselves ready to go. He\u2019s just fantastic. What can you not say about him? As a player he had a fantastic career and then as a manager, as a coach, he\u2019s had a fantastic career as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just that character for us as a team. His first stint when he came here, and then when he came back second time, he just kept us going.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Celtic's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1_Celtic-v-Motherwell-William-Hill-Premiership.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Daizen Maeda was Celtic’s hero against Rangers(Image: SNS Group)<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill steadied the ship after the dramatic departure of Brendan Rodgers and then picked up the pieces following Wilfried Nancy\u2019s 33-day Twilight Zone experience.<\/p>\n
Now the Northern Irishman is driving the push for the title. There was another masterclass at the weekend when he tweaked his side at half-time against Rangers \u2013 and then left the Light Blues in a pile of rubble.<\/p>\n
Trusty provided a peek behind the curtain and said” \u201cHe\u2019s calm but also a little bit aggressive. He really wants to hound his message. But he has a lot of experience and knows exactly what to say. And we reacted well to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill is leading from the front in the dugout but it\u2019s Daizen Maeda providing the heroics on it. The frontman produced one of the all-time great Old Firm goals with his outrageous overhead kick to make it 3-1. The attacker has bagged six goals in his last four games to catch fire at the business end after smouldering for long spells this season.<\/p>\n
Trusty admitted his jaw hit the floor when he saw the ball sail into Jack Butland\u2019s net \u2013 but nothing surprising the defender when it comes to the Samurai sensation.<\/p>\n
Trusty said: \u201cI didn\u2019t know he was going to do that! But, I think it\u2019s goal of the year \u2013 obviously Yang\u2019s already won it \u2013 Daizen\u2019s is right up there. He\u2019s fantastic, he\u2019s one of the best players I\u2019ve ever played with.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think having a guy like that in your side, defensively and offensively, you definitely want him in your side, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maeda\u2019s relentless attitude gets fans off there feet \u2013 but teammates also feed of his energy.<\/p>\n
Trusty said: \u201cAbsolutely. When you see someone working their butt off, defensively and offensively, getting into every spot and tracking back, as a number nine making defensive plays in his own box, it only helps the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maeda will be leading the line at Fir Park on Wednesday night again \u2013 and there\u2019s no margin of error for Celtic.<\/p>\n
The Hoops were given a chasing by Jens Bethel Askou\u2019s men in North Lanarkshire over the festive period and it was a tough clash in Glasgow before Celts eventually prevailed.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a bumpy campaign at times but Trusty is convinced the hard knocks have only made the Hoops more resilient.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cAgain, there are highs and lows in the entire season. But, I think through the lows we\u2019ve stuck together and got even stronger. We don\u2019t want lows, but with it we can take the positives and get even stronger.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just continuing our momentum that we\u2019ve built.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trusty is hoping the forward momentum can carry Celts over the line \u2013 and take him all the way to this summer\u2019s World Cup on home soil.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cI think you would be lying if you said you don\u2019t think about things. But the games here are so important, individually and collectively, we have fought through the ups and downs of the season to get to this point, potentially lifting two trophies.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then hopefully having the World Cup in the background. You just want to focus on game by game, day by day. That\u2019s the only thing that matters. Performing here is what gets me to the World Cup. That\u2019s the only thing that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hoops defender is going all in for the final two games of the season and he lifted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2817,1669,63797,218,9531,30905,8058,11728,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-579618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-celtic-fc","tag-champions-league","tag-derek-mcinnes","tag-football","tag-hearts-fc","tag-martin-oneill","tag-scottish-premiership","tag-scottish-professional-football-league","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579618","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=579618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}