Martin O’Neill has challenged his Celtic players to force his hand for the remainder of the season by delivering today at Ibrox.
The Scottish Cup quarter final clash is the Parkhead club’s 10th match in what’s been a hectic period since the start of February. But with schedule becoming lighter after the derby, O’Neill foresees less need for rotation and fewer enforced changes through injuries and suspensions.
And with the business end of the campaign now coming into view, he feels any player who shines against Rangers is likely to remain in his side.
‘It might have been one free week in the two spells that I’ve been in,’ he recalled.
‘Coming back second time, it’s just been that midweek, midweek, midweek. And therefore, in your mind you think – can the players continue this and keep going?
Celtic boss Martin O’Neill is looking for a settled line up for the rest of the season
‘So, there’s that element of form, as much as anything else. I’m not even sure that I would have played the same side twice in two consecutive games.
‘Now, when you’re down to the one fixture per week, then it will really very much matter of how you perform that time. Because you’ve got time to recover, you’ve got time to think about it.
‘So really, the times of rotation, you have now a wee bit more time. You don’t have to worry about rotation as much. It’s the injuries that concern you and the form. And if you can do really well at Ibrox, you give yourself a chance, don’t you of staying in the side.’
A run on the road which began in Stuttgart, continued a week ago at Ibrox before the midweek trip to Pittodrie.
With the side winning two and drawing one of those matches, the manager feels they’ve demonstrated their ability to perform in challenging environments.
‘They have and I think they should really get some credit for that,’ he added. ‘I thought that Stuttgart was pretty hostile in that sense.
‘They’re flying in the Bundesliga, so we did great there. But to come back to Rangers and show some character in the second half, and then to follow up the up with a game on a pitch is just trying to recover from pretty lousy weather, for us to go and win the game was really important.
‘It sets us up anyway. At least then after this, we’re nearly down to just one fixture per week, which gives us a chance again, if we can hang in.’
O’Neill’s first spell in charge this season saw Celtic beat Rangers at Hampden in the League Cup semi-final.
Luke McCowan scored to give Celtic a morale boosting second leg win at Stuttgart
While he was forced to watch on from afar as the side lost the final to St Mirren under Wilfried Nancy, O’Neill detects that the players he was subsequently asked to manage again will still be hurting from that experience.
Asked if he detected a desire to make amends, he said: ‘I hope so. I genuinely hope so. It’s not something I’ve mentioned at the time. It’s obviously a massive disappointment to them that they couldn’t win that.
‘Maybe you’ve given me food for thought. I might even mention it to them tomorrow or something.’
O’Neill’s last game in charge of his first spell in charge was a one-goal victory over Dundee United in the 2005 Scottish Cup Final.
Celtic lost the League Cup final to St Mirren during Wilfried Nancy’s disastrous reign
Hopeful that he can return to Hampden in May looking to lift the trophy under better circumstances, he recalled: ‘It was kind of bittersweet in many aspects because we’d lost the league the previous week at Motherwell.
‘If you ask me about memories, my two biggest memories of my five years at Celtic were Seville and Motherwell.
‘It’s never been about winning. The two times you get beaten. And it’s essentially true. But it was nice, I suppose, to finish winning the Scottish Cup.
‘Which actually, believe it or not, means a great deal to me because I go back to the days when there was only one live game on TV. It was the FA Cup final.
‘And then you were getting reports coming through, if memory serves me right occasional pictures, what was happening at what I would call the great Hampden.
“The atmospheric Hampden, not the one where the seats are about 14 miles away. But still, it’s a great competition.
‘So, from that viewpoint, yeah. It was just nice maybe to finish my spell there as having won something.’
