Celtic desperately need to find a way to improve performances

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The Celtic Star

·9 Februari 2026

Celtic desperately need to find a way to improve performances

This season has been one that is so unique that it is hard to compare with any other in all my years of supporting Celtic…

07.02.2026 Celtic v Dundee, Scottish Cup 5th round. Callum McGregor at the end of the match applauds the Celtic support. Photo Kenny Ramsay IMAGO

There has been enough drama in one campaign that even the writers of a soap opera would have struggled to create a storyline so rife with intrigue.

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Over the past few months many, including myself, have compared it to the dreaded ‘covid season’ under Neil Lennon and there are certainly parallels between the two but what makes this different is that somehow we are still managing to just about eke out results to keep our head above the water.

If you remember back to the 2020/21 season, there were no last minute winners. There were no moments of luck where we snatched three points or progressed in the cup after playing poorly. We were pretty much woeful from start to finish. There was the pathetic attempt at ten in a row. We went out of the League Cup in the second round. We exited the Scottish Cup in the fourth round. We ended bottom of our Europa League group.

7th February 2026 Celtic Park, Scottish Cup, Celtic versus Dundee. Junior Adamu of Celtic celebrates after scoring an equaliser for 1-1 in the 97th minute. Photo David Young IMAGO

This season is different. The worry I have however is that our current run is unsustainable. The more I watch this team the more I see us sliding towards the cliff edge.

I don’t need to go through the multiple dramas that has played out already this season as we have all lived every painstaking minute of it so I’ll skip forward to the bit where Martin O’Neill and his team are back at the helm again, for the second time this season, a campaign where we have also had two other managers already in the hot seat.

Celtic manager Martin O’Neill. Celtic v Dundee, Scottish Cup, Fifth Round, Celtic Park, Glasgow, 07 February. Photo Stuart Wallace Shutterstock/IMAGO

Martin did incredibly well in his earlier stint after the departure of Brendan Rodgers, keeping us on course in the league, the League Cup and in Europe. The perfect man to steady the ship and navigate it through troubled waters.

During that period we didn’t care how he did it, we were just glad that the results were positive. After the Nancy disaster, Martin and his team came back again and incredibly dragged this squad out of their slump and into the next rounds in the Scottish Cup and into the knockout phase of the Europa League. They have also kept us in the race for the title.

The cracks are starting to show however and I’m worried at just how much longer we can continue to perform the way we are before our luck runs out and the whole season implodes.

Referee Ryan Lee Celtic v Dundee, Scottish Cup, Fifth Round, Celtic Park, Glasgow, 07 February 2026. Photo Stuart Wallace Shutterstock/ IMAGO

Between referee bias/incompetence, Celtic Park’s atmosphere resembling a morgue, ongoing boycotts and protests against the board and drama over player recruitment this season has all the ingredients to be a disaster.

To me however even more worrying is the fact that our performances on the pitch just don’t seem to be improving. Yes we are somehow still managing to grind out wins but it’s completely unsustainable. We are balancing on a cliff edge and it now feels to me like even the smallest breeze could be enough to topple us over that edge, and as I look down I can’t see any trees below that will be there to break our fall.

I don’t know if Martin O’Neill is a lucky manager. What I do know however is that you can’t keep relying on last minute goals or a moment of magic here and there to sustain a challenge over a whole campaign. At some point your luck will run out.

Performances have to improve if we are to have any chance of having success this season. I don’t know what it is affecting the players but at times it seems like the vast majority of them are sleepwalking through games. They can’t keep relying on a rousing teamtalk from Martin O’Neill, as clearly happened before extra time on Saturday, to push them on. They need to find that mentality from the first kick of the ball and maintain it for over 90 minutes.

The coaches need to prove they have the ability to get this team playing the way they want. I’ve noticed during the last couple of matches that we have been slipping back to the Brendan Rodgers ‘horse shoe’ tactics that frustrated so many at the start of the season.

7th February 2026; Celtic Park, Scottish Cup Football, Celtic versus Dundee; Drey Wright of Dundee blocks a shot from Tomas Cvancara of Celtic. Photo David Young. IMAGO/Action Plus

Are the players just reverting back to what they know? Our coaches need to come up with something better as teams in Scotland have worked out how to counteract this tactic a long time ago. We have brought in players such as Cvancara and Adamu that should mean we can perhaps play in a style more familiar to Martin O’Neill. A style that will give the opposition more to think about, one that’s less obvious than what has been on show recently.

Whatever the plan is, the players and coaching staff need to implement it quickly. There is no way we can continue as we are and hope to continue to progress on all three fronts.

We have two fixtures ahead of us that give us a chance to try something new. Two games where we have to try and improve performance and really lay a marker down. On the other side of those two fixtures is a run of four seriously tough away fixtures that will define our season. One that if things don’t improve on the pitch could see our hopes in the three remaining competitions this season go up in smoke.

It’s now or never for this Celtic team if they want to salvage anything from this arduous season. Over to you Bhoys.

Conall McGinty

Celtic in the Thirties by Matt Corr. Click on image to order