Martin O’Neill says Celtic’s battles are ‘elsewhere’ after the defeat to Stuttgart in the Europa League.
The Celtic manager was clearly speaking about on the football pitch as Celtic face a fight to retain the Scottish Premiership title with Hearts and Rangers.
However, Celtic’s defeat to Stuttgart raised more issues with fan anger towards the Celtic board and the glaring lack of quality in the Hoops first team.
Can you see any way of Celtic getting back into this tie?
Why did it go so wrong? Let us know
But O’Neill is clearly focused on what lies ahead domestically after he claimed Celtic will become a ‘top European team’ one day.
O’Neill told TNT Sports, “It’s a tough ask [to get through vs Stuttgart]. You know, you’re travelling over to the side who are fourth in the Bundesliga who are very, very capable of winning this competition.
“And so they’re a good side. And at some stage or another, Celtic will become a top quality European team.
“That’s in the future, that will be one of those things at some stage or another.
“But at this minute, our battles are elsewhere.”
The battle for Celtic lies in the boardroom right now, not on the pitch
It’s quite a claim to make from O’Neill, considering the board he works for has actively dismantled Celtic’s hope of becoming a European force by systematically selling off their top players over consecutive transfer windows.
It’s been over a year since Celtic sold Kyogo Furuhashi and since then the club scrambled to sign Kelechi Iheanacho on a free, recalled Johnny Kenny only to reloan him out again, signed Junior Adamu only to see him drop out of the team after one start, and then turned to Tomas Cvancara, who struggled for a game at Freiburg.
Under this Celtic board, the dream of becoming a European force again looks like it may never happen. There appears to be no appetite to prepare or plan to do so.
And as O’Neill has recently found out, Celtic’s unwillingness to spend money has not only regressed the club in Europe, it has allowed Hearts and Rangers to move ahead of them domestically and that, I’m afraid, is completely unforgivable.
What now for Celtic and Europe?
As this season goes, the Europa League is over for Celtic. The 4-1 defeat at Parkhead is insurmountable.
As for any future ambitions for the continental stage, Celtic fans can forget it whilst the current regime is in situ.
Failure to invest properly in the Celtic first team has become par for the course and when fans look at the team they watched give Bayern Munich a fright less than a year ago, and compare it to this side, they will not believe just how far they have fallen in such a short space of time.
Will Celtic become a European force? Not with this board, it seems.
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