Former Celtic winger Aiden McGeady has questioned the mentality and fitness of Martin O’Neill’s players following their disastrous Champions League collapse against LASK.
Celtic travelled to Austria holding a commanding advantage in their play-off tie but surrendered a four-goal aggregate lead as LASK completed a remarkable comeback to dump the Hoops into the Europa League.
McGeady was particularly concerned by the number of Celtic players struggling physically during the second leg, despite O’Neill’s side having no domestic fixture in the build-up.
“There was no game at the weekend, so to see that many players going down with cramp after 60 minutes… it shouldn’t be happening,” he said on Go Radio. “But again that probably goes back to the mental side, players are almost kind of taking the easy way out.
“I’m not trying to criticise Colby Donovan here, but Colby Donovan went off and I don’t know the extent of what he went off with but it looked to me like he had a couple of marks down his shin.
“I don’t think that’s enough to go off, if that’s me I want to stay on.
“You’re playing a Champions League qualifier to get your club through… I felt that epitomised that performance. From everyone, almost weak and a bit scared to actually go and take LASK on.
“After the first leg everybody was going crazy about how good Celtic were – Duran, Hogh and all these other players how they played really well, Colby Donovan’s one of them as well, Nygren too.
“But that is not the game I watched. I didn’t say anything but now I’ve listened to Callum McGregor speak after the game and he did say ‘even the first leg I don’t actually think we were that good’.
“It’s funny how three wondergoals can put the shine on an average performance, I wasn’t overjoyed with Celtic’s first leg performance.”
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1 Comment
It was clear from watching the match replay that Celtic players were not fit enough. Ange would have had them much fitter.
O K, there was some sort of bug going round, which would have put some at a below their normal fitness, but this was embarrassing.