Martin O’Neill believes Celtic’s stirring second-half comeback at Ibrox showed his side still have what it takes to retain their title.
Comprehensively outplayed in the first period, the champions found themselves two goals down through Youssef Chermiti’s double.
But a vastly-improved second-half performance saw O’Neill’s men pull one goal back through Kieran Tierney before levelling in injury time when Reo Hatate converted at the third attempt after initially missing a penalty.
The 2-2 draw ensured Celtic are still eight points behind leaders Hearts before they play their game in hand at Pittodrie on Wednesday.
Despite having no margin for error in their remaining 10 matches, O’Neill saw enough in the second-half show to believe his side can yet win the Premiership.
‘I think today’s result – if you belong to Hearts – then you’ll think it’s a great result for them,’ said the veteran.
Martin O’Neill says Celtic’s fightback in a 2-2 draw at Ibrox shows their desire to retain the title
Defender Kieran Tierney pulls one back for Celtic after they had gone 2-0 down in the first half
Reo Hatate nets a late equaliser after having his penalty saved by Rangers keeper Jack Butland
‘But even so, we’re not out of it. If the game had ended at half time, with our performance, we’d have thought ‘we’re a million miles off it’.
‘Now, by the end of the game, the manner that we played, particularly here at Ibrox, 2-0 down, we fight back.
‘There’s still plenty of heart and desire to try and retain the championship. It’s just been a tough old struggle this season. We just have to try and dig it out.’
Having felt his struggling side were fortunate to still be in the game at the break, the Northern Irishman believed they might even have won it after their heroic comeback in the match.
‘We were second best for almost all of the first half,’ he conceded. ‘Rangers got off to a great start and capitalised on our uncertainty, as much as anything else. It was a tough first half for us.
‘I had to try and turn it around and the players showed some character to come back.
‘Other than the first three or four minutes of the second half, I thought we dominated the second half, so much so that the crowd were perhaps turning on their own players.
‘We were so dominant and we wonder where it came from, or why we couldn’t string a couple of passes together in the first half.
‘We defended a wee bit better – although their first goal was a really great goal. It was lovely to come out and get something. We could easily have won it in the end. Luke (McCowan) says he maybe should have scored.
‘First half, totally Rangers. Second half, totally us.
‘I think if you look at it and you had told me at half-time that we would get out of this with something, it looked a long, long way off.
‘But when we finally scored the penalty at about the sixth attempt, Hatate is racing out to put the ball back on the halfway line. There is a bit of frustration, but I think we are still in the title race when it looked pretty daunting at half-time.”
So poor were his side in the first half that O’Neill admitted he felt it hard to strike an optimistic note in the dressing room.
‘Sometimes it’s not always possible to stay positive, particularly after that pretty poor performance,’ he said.
‘I think the general message was that despite us not being at the races in the first half, we were actually still in the game, we can turn this around, the next goal becomes the most important thing.
‘If Rangers get it, it’s miles away, but if we can get the goal then we are still in the game.”
Celtic gained more control of the game when their manager replaced Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Junior Adamu with Hatate and Seb Tounekti at the break.
‘It’s a difficult one for Alex,’ said O’Neill. ‘He’s trying to get up to speed at this minute not having played. He’s a very fine footballer.
‘It was one of those, do you play him until he gets really tired? It was just the game was so fast, in particular the first half, and I think we as a team struggled with it – the intensity of it.
‘But we showed great character to fight back and the manner that we got it down and played caused them all sorts of problems. We seemed to retain the ball better and when it was kicked back into our half, we got it again and circulated the ball. We deserved it.’
After keeping a clean sheet in Stuttgart, Viljami Sinisalo kept his place in goal although O’Neill said the decision was made for him due to Kasper Schmeichel being under the weather.
‘The point I want to try and make is that on Thursday, I thought Sinisalo did really well in the game,’ said O’Neill.
‘Sometimes when you’re changing goalkeepers around to play in certain competitions, then if somebody steps up and does really well in the game…
‘But I hadn’t any real decision to make today in that sense. Maybe later on down the line.
‘He (Schmeichel) should be available for selection on Wednesday. Yeah, so we’ll see.’
O’Neill was relieved that his 74th birthday wasn’t spoiled by his side’s abject first-half display.
‘We stayed overnight last night in the hotel,’ he revealed. ‘The backroom staff dimmed the lights and brought out a birthday cake. It was pathetic.
‘The problem is, my birthday was not until 12 o’clock and I could have died between 7.30pm and 12 o’clock. Seriously.
‘I don’t know who would have eaten the cake. Probably (Mark) Fotheringham.’
