2026-08-26 08:52:09

Martin O’Neill declared himself “responsible” for Celtic’s calamitous collapse against LASK in their Champions League qualifier.

The Scottish champions threw away a four-goal aggregate advantage as they were beaten 5-1 (5-4 on aggregate) by the Austrian side in the second leg of their play-off tie on Tuesday (25.08.26) and the coach accepted culpability for the nightmare defeat.

O’Neill said: “I’m responsible for this one.

“Without a doubt. Naturally it took me a long time to get over the UEFA Cup final in 2003 (when his Celtic side lost to Porto) but this was majorly disappointing.

“In the context of things, one was a final which it would have been terrific to win, this was a qualifying game which we should have been able to get through.

“We know that we are a million miles from the finished article. That’s absolutely true. I think we thought that anyway.”

O’Neill stressed that Celtic will have to bounce back on missing out on the financial riches and “prestige” of the Champions League for a second straight season.

The Hoops manager said: “The qualification for the Champions League is major, it’s major in every aspect.

“Financially, for prestige, but we have to pick ourselves up. That’s my responsibility again to do that.

“I think I said last week that if you could qualify for the Champions League there would be players wanting to come on that basis.

“That’s not going to be the case but we’ll see. Tonight we came up well and truly short, particularly in the second half.”

Celtic captain Callum McGregor offered a damning assessment of the team’s “passive” performance.

He told Amazon Prime: “We got what we deserved. We were passive all night. We looked scared to go and win the game.

“I didn’t think we were that good in the first leg either. We scored at good times and got away with it.

“We have to suck it up. We apologise to our supporters and the club because there’s no way we should lose that game.

“It’s as much on the players as everyone else. You can’t look for excuses elsewhere.

“You’ll now see what people are made of. When you play like that you can’t have any excuses whatsoever.”

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