{"id":460960,"date":"2026-02-10T22:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T22:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/460960\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T22:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T22:26:11","slug":"scottish-premiership-preview-motherwell-v-rangers-plus-celtics-martin-oneill-and-benjamin-nygren-in-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/460960\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottish Premiership preview: Motherwell v Rangers, plus Celtic’s Martin O’Neill and Benjamin Nygren in spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Celtic Park is not the place where Livingston, six points adrift of Kilmarnock at the bottom and winless in 23 league games since August – the longest run of any side in the top flight in the 21st century – will be expected to earn their first points since Marvin Bartley was promoted to head coach<\/a> with David Martindale moving upstairs.<\/p>\n

Especially when opposition boss Martin O’Neill will be marking his 200th game in charge of the Glasgow side – the sixth to reach that milestone.<\/p>\n

The Northern Irishman has already reached it with more wins than anyone else – his 164 being 10 better than Neil Lennon achieved – and Celtic will be strong favourites to add to that on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Celtic remain unbeaten in eight games since the 73-year-old, already a club legend, was put in interim charge for a second spell this season, this time until the summer, after Wilfried Nancy’s dismal short reign.<\/p>\n

Six of those have been victories – four of them at home – and although they remain six points behind leaders Hearts, Celtic now have a game in hand.<\/p>\n

O’Neill’s side are involved in a three-horse race for the title, with improving city rivals Rangers now ahead in second.<\/p>\n

However, while still looking vulnerable at the back, Celtic look to have resolved the missing link up front.<\/p>\n

January signings Tomas Cvancara, the Czech Republic striker on loan from Borussia Monchengladbach, and Switzerland’s Junior Adamu, on loan from Freiburg, have already hit the goal trail.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Kelechi Iheanacho is close to a return from injury and their latest arrival, former Arsenal and Liverpool midfielder Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, also adds to their firepower.<\/p>\n

The old never-say-die Celtic attitude was also back on display on Saturday as Adamu’s stoppage-time equaliser denied Dundee a famous cup victory in Glasgow.<\/p>\n

O’Neill will therefore be expected to mark that 200th game in charge in style against a side against whom they are unbeaten in 22 home games, winning 19 of them, and having won the latest 10 by an aggregate of 30-6 since a 0-0 stalemate in October 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celtic Park is not the place where Livingston, six points adrift of Kilmarnock at the bottom and winless…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-460960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}