Squeaking past bottom side Livingston thanks to an injury-time winner probably isn’t how Martin O’Neill would have expected to mark his 200th league game as Celtic manager.
In fact, the 73-year-old probably never expected to take charge of any more Celtic games when he left in 2005.
Advertisement
But a debut winner from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, scored in injury time, had all the hallmarks of an O’Neill team this season.
During his 10 league games in charge across two interim spells, Celtic have scored 23 goals – four of those have come in the final 10 minutes and three were scored in the 90th minute or later.
O’Neill, though, would rather get the job done earlier. “If those late goals did prove resilience and a bit of character, that’s great,” he said.
“But I don’t think you can live on your nerves for the rest of the time like that, expecting or hoping that you’re going to dig out a winner very late on. It’s not plausible.”
Advertisement
Another intriguing point is Oxlade-Chamberlain’s winner was the third time this season a Celtic player has scored a vital goal on their debut.
The first was Kelechi Iheanacho, who scored a 96th-minute penalty to secure a 2-1 win over Kilmarnock at Rugby Park in September, under Brendan Rodgers.
Then it was Junior Adamu in Saturday’s Scottish Cup win over Dundee – his 97th-minute goal took the tie to extra time where Celtic won 2-1 – before Oxlade-Chamberlain rescued three points on Wednesday night.
That victory was O’Neill’s 165th in 200 top-flight games with Celtic. He has drawn 20 and lost just 15. In fact, the Northern Irishman’s win rate of 82.5% is the best any Celtic manager.
Advertisement
Ange Postecoglou is the closest to O’Neill with an 80% win rate over his 188 Premiership games. Neil Lennon comes next with 75.3% from 231 matches, followed by Rodgers with 75% from 76 games.
This season, O’Neill’s win rate is at 90% for 10 games – the best of any current Scottish Premiership boss by some margin.
Rangers head coach Danny Rohl is second with 72.2% from 18 matches, while Hearts boss Derek McInnes is third with 65.4% from 26.
With that kind of record Celtic fans would surely be happy to have O’Neill in charge for another 200 league games.
And he notches another milestone this weekend against Kilmarnock – his 300th match in all competitions as Celtic boss.
Read the full article here
