Martin O’Neill has accused Danny Rohl of acting ‘like a fan’ after the Rangers manager questioned his side’s approach in Stuttgart.
Celtic scored through Luke McCowan inside 29 seconds in a 1-0 win, and almost immediately pulled another goal back in the tie through Daizen Maeda.
Despite ultimately going out of the Europa League 4-2 on aggregate, the Parkhead men were widely commended for winning a match on German soil for the first time.
However, Ibrox head coach Rohl clearly wasn’t impressed with the approach of O’Neill and his players – and questioned why Celtic hadn’t gone for ‘two or three’.
O’Neill hit back: ‘I’ve just heard it. The lads told me in the little TV room. He must have gone for a cup of tea when Maeda could have made it 2-0 after six minutes.
‘It’s quite extraordinary, an extraordinary comment to make, really. We, believe it or not, definitely tried to win the game.
Martin O’Neill wasn’t pleased that Danny Rohl had commented on his side’s European match
‘Seriously, we wanted to try and, when we score early in proceedings, it gives us a major lift.
‘If Maeda does score, it makes it 2-0 and it becomes really interesting. And I think it spooked them for a while in the game. They’re very, very talented footballers, really good players.
‘We just got a little bit tired towards the end and they kept the ball very well, you know, in the last 10 minutes. We had a chance. I know it was only about three or four minutes to go when Seb (Tounekti) probably could have scored, and that would have been an interesting 180 seconds or something after that. But believe me, we tried to win the tie.’
Rohl also riled O’Neill by claiming that his dilemma over which goalkeeper to choose was ‘interesting’ after Viljami Sinisalo kept a clean sheet in Germany when he was selected ahead of Kasper Schmeichel.
‘I also heard that,’ added O’Neill, whose team face a crucial trip to Ibrox tomorrow. ‘I’m glad he’s really interested in the make-up of my team. He hasn’t been in Glasgow that long, has he? It does feel like that, yeah. Hopefully, once he’s been around for the next three or four years, he’ll know about it.’
O’Neill beat Rohl in their only meeting to date in last year’s League Cup semi-final at Hampden.
‘Yeah, listen, that was in the very early proceedings and things have changed since that there. But we did actually beat them and I don’t think I mentioned the make-up of his team at the time.
‘He didn’t say it in a jocular fashion, did he? He’s speaking like a fan, isn’t he? He is the manager of Rangers.’
O’Neill, who turns 74 on Sunday, was asked if he still managed to remain calm ahead of such matches.
‘Well, hopefully Danny doesn’t do another press conference between now and then. Phone him and find out,’ he smiled. ‘He’s a very young man, but …’
O’Neill is adamant that he’s yet to decide if some of his star turns in Stuttgart including Luke McCowan and Sinisalo will start at Ibrox.
‘Honestly, I’ve just climbed off the plane,’ he added. ‘We’ll gather our thoughts tomorrow and just have a real think about it.
‘Some of the lads who played last night and did very, very well in the game, hopefully it’s not a headache.’
