For many Celtic fans, tonight’s trip to Fir Park revives painful memories of the dramatic 2005 title collapse, when Scott McDonald’s late double denied Martin O’Neill’s side the title in agonising fashion.
21 years later, Celtic return to Motherwell facing a remarkably familiar scenario. Defeat in North Lanarkshire, combined with a Hearts victory over Falkirk at Tynecastle, would end their hopes of lifting the title.
Despite Sunday’s 3-1 Glasgow Derby victory, O’Neill remains wary of the challenge posed by Jens Berthel Askou’s Motherwell team and has resisted any suggestion that Celtic now hold the upper hand in the race.
“It’s a different set of circumstances,” O’Neill stressed via The Herald. “It’s just ironic that it should be this. It could be all over tomorrow night if we don’t get a result. We have to win the game.”
O’Neill admitted the events of 2005 still linger in his memory, describing the missed opportunity as one of the biggest disappointments of his career.
“So that still remains a massive disappointment to me, that game in 2005,” he said. “But a different set of circumstances and this group of players wouldn’t even have heard about it.
“I thought we should have won out of the park at the end of that day. We missed goal after goal. [Gordon] Marshall was brilliant in goal for them. I remember John Hartson headed one from about two yards, and it hit him straight in the face.”
O’Neill recalled sensing something ominous as the match wore on, although he insists Celtic only had themselves to blame for failing to secure the result they needed.
“And you got the feeling as the game was going on, there might be some sort of foreboding there,” he added. “But listen, it happened. We should have won. We didn’t. It played on my mind for about 15 years, but after that I let it go.”
The prospect of O’Neill returning to Fir Park and overturning the ghosts of 2005 by guiding Celtic to an unexpected title has added extra intrigue to the fixture. Asked whether he believes in fate, the 74 year-old responded with humour.
“If it happens, yeah,” he said. “I’ll say that if we get beaten at Motherwell, and that constitutes us losing [the title], then I will never visit Fir Park again in my life. I will take a detour. I’ll go to Wishaw instead. I’ll visit the Tommy Gemmell statue!”
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