Marvin Bartley admits ‘two strange feelings’ after Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s late Celtic winner

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Marvin Bartley admitted he felt ‘two strange feelings’ as the Livingston boss felt gutted and proud watching his team suffer a late sickener at Celtic Park after Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s winning goal.

And as Celtic fans rejoiced, Livingston boss Bartley told BBC Sportsound, “Gutted. You know, that would be the emotion. I’m upset for the players, but I’m also proud of them, which is probably two strange feelings.

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“They’re polar opposite. But in terms of the effort that the lads put in today, they were absolutely magnificent to a man.

“But I am hurting for them, because we were so close to picking up a vital point and Oxlade-Chamberlain comes up with a huge goal for Celtic.”

Celtic huffed and puffed against the Scottish Premiership bottom strugglers until Oxlade-Chamberlain popped up with a 91st minute debut goal to help the Bhoys beat Livingston late on to collect all three points.

• READ MORE: Celtic boss Martin O’Neill hails Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s ‘wonder goal’ in late Livingston win

Bartley is envious of Celtic’s ‘quality’ as Livingston boss points out Hoops bench options

And as the pain of the late defeat sunk in, Bartley was clearly envious of the quality Celtic had on the bench, as that made the big difference between the Hoops winning or drawing the match.

Bartley continued, “That’s the difference, isn’t it. Even Hatate coming on the first half. Engels, comes back in, they freshen it up. Unfortunately for him, he goes off injured and Hatate comes on the pitch.

“So you’re looking across, and the quality they are bringing on off the bench is absolutely huge. But our players matched them in terms of effort.

“As I said, we had a game plan. They stuck to it. They worked extremely hard within that shape, trying to show a little bit of quality at times then going forward.

“But we just weren’t able to hang on at the end. And the players deserve that, just for the effort that they put in.

Position	Team	Played MP	Won W	Drawn D	Lost L	For GF	Against GA	Diff GD	Points Pts
1	Heart Of MidlothianHeart Of Midlothian	26	17	6	3	48	20	28	57
2	RangersRangers	26	14	10	2	43	19	24	52
3	CelticCeltic	25	16	3	6	45	24	21	51
4	MotherwellMotherwell	25	11	11	3	38	18	20	44
5	HibernianHibernian	26	10	9	7	41	31	10	39

“Our goalkeeper pulled off some big, big saves, but you need that at Celtic Park now. I know people will look at that, but we need our goalkeeper to be as good as he was today.

“A little bit of luck along the way, but we didn’t get it at the end, unfortunately.”

There is no doubt Celtic made heavy weather of beating Livingston, especially after Martin O’Neill’s side came out of the traps really strongly at the beginning of the game.

That vital win now leaves Celtic just one point off Rangers and six behind Hearts as the race for the Scottish Premiership title continues to heat up.