Martin O’Neill had a tense stand-off with a TNT Sports reporter after Celtic created history in the Europa League after beating Stuttgart in Germany.
Celtic’s win over Stuttgart was the Parkhead club’s first-ever win on German soil in the club’s entire unbroken history.
And instead of congratulating the Celtic boss, TNT Sports took a different narrative and it was one O’Neill didn’t appreciate.
- READ MORE: Three things we noticed about Martin O’Neill during Celtic pre-match press conference vs Stuttgart
Celtic’s Europa League run comes to an end despite the win against Stuttgart 🥲
But who gets your man of the match from that spirited performance?
Martin O’Neill confused at TNT Sports’ ‘real Celtic’ question
O’Neill would have been delighted at the result, but it appears he was the only one as TNT Sports’ Connie McLaughlin asked the Celtic boss, “Commiserations, obviously out of the competition. But was that the real Celtic tonight in terms of performance?”
O’Neill seemed puzzled as he replied, “I think that you’re saying about a real Celtic, I mean we’ve turned up quite a number of times in recent times.
“And for instance, if you just go back to Sunday, we had the majority of the game. I don’t think if we had a man sent off, we might create a couple more chances, maybe, to win the game.
“So I thought we played really well in the match overall. In the game that you’re talking about in the first leg, we let it run away from us, and have given away some soft goals.
“But tonight, yeah, I agree with you. I think that it was a brilliant backs to the wall performance. It was at some stage or another, but we still had chances in the game.
“And you never know, had Seb scored that one towards the end of the game, it might have been a nervy few minutes for what I consider a very, very good team, a team capable of winning this competition.”
Martin O’Neill rejects TNT Sports’ weird Celtic ‘consistency’ barb
Not content with pouring cold water on the win, McLaughlin then asked another strange question about Celtic’s consistency under O’Neill.
McLaughlin: “But to do all the things you want to do and have all the success that you’re desperate to have with this club, the consistency of that, if we want to call it the real Celtic, I guess, is that is that the biggest frustration? Because you know that they can do they’ve got it in them.”
O’Neill: “Well, you have to explain to me, what do you mean by consistency?”
McLaughlin: “Winning games, I mean.”
O’Neill: “Winning games? Well, that’s what we’ve been doing. We lost two games. We’ve lost two matches there recently, one against Stuttgart at home, and the other one against Hibs, when I said to you, we played really well in the game.
“So I’m really sorry, I’m going to have to disagree with you.”
It really was a strange line of questioning and it’s little wonder O’Neill was bemused with the reporter.
Celtic have only lost three games out of 21 in two interim spells under O’Neill. If McLaughlin is wanting more consistency, does the TNT Sports journalist need to see a 100% win record?
The interview gets worse every time it’s watched back but for O’Neill, he can now sit back and plan for Rangers on Sunday knowing that, for now, he has created another piece of European history for Celtic.
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