“I was surprised at the severity of it,” Martin O’Neill on Kasper’s devastating news | OneFootball

Martin O’Neill gave an insight into the Kasper Schmeichel injury update that was delivered on CBS Sports this week without the knowledge of the Celtic manager who was unaware of the injury prognosis and also the goalkeeper’s plans to announce it to the world before he knew what the situation was.

Kasper Schmeichel breaks his devastating injury news. Image ia CBS Sports

However he dismissed Chris Sutton’s assessment that Kasper Schmeichel, who was back on the training pitches at Lennoxtown today helping with training, was selfish in putting Denmark before Celtic and failing to mention Celtic at all during his big announcement.

Alistair Johnston at Hampden after Celtic’s 3-1 win over theRangers on 2 November 2025 Photo AJ (The Celtic Star)

Martin also gave positive updates on Alistair Johnston, Arne Engels and Callum McGregor with the later likely to be involved on Sunday against Dundee United at Tannadice while the Canadian and Belgian stars are set for a return post international break.

Arne Engels of Celtic. Falkirk v Celtic, Scottish Premiership, Falkirk Stadium, 14 January 2026. Photo Vagelis Georgariou

Here’s everything that was said at today’s mainstream media conference at Lennoxtown with a reminder that The Celtic Star and other participating Celtic fan media outlets remained banned by a club that doesn’t want to have any sort of two way conversation with its supporters.

Kasper Schmeichel, Stevie Woods and Viljami Sinisalo of Celtic. Stuttgart v Celtic, UEFA Europa League, Knockout Round Play Offs, Second Leg, Football, MHP Arena, Stuttgart, Germany – 26 Feb 2026Stuttgart MHP Arena Germany Photo James Marsh IMAGO Shutterstock

Q: Your reaction to Kasper Schmeichel’s injury news?

Martin O’Neill: “I must admit I was surprised at the severity of it. I know that he was having injections to play some of the games, and while that’s not a great remedy, I must admit, I didn’t realise how bad it was. And so, yeah, disappointed to hear the news.”

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Q: So did something change recently then? Because I remember last week you thought that he had trained, you thought there was perhaps a chance he could be involved?

Martin O’Neill:  “Absolutely, you know, I’d sort of come down, come into training, I thought he was getting back from that, but it was, yeah, it was disappointing to hear.

I think just after the Rangers game, which he wasn’t involved in, the first one he got an injection, I don’t think that went terribly well, he was telling me. And it caused a lot of inflammation, more than anything else. But he was making decent progress at the time, then he’s gone back and found out it’s too bad to continue. I know we’ve all played with injuries, but I genuinely didn’t know that it was as severe as that, and it was like a career-threatening one. Probably because of his age, things like that, people will immediately think that that’s it. I was disappointed to hear the news.”

Callum McGregor of Celtic and Kasper Schmeichel of Celtic at the final whistle. Celtic v Falkirk, Scottish Premiership, Celtic Park, 01 February 2026. Photo Mark Runnacles IMAGO / Shutterstock

Q: On that, I take it, players will maybe try and play through things that they want to play, they want to contribute. Is that what’s happened over the last few months with his injury?

Martin O’Neill:  “I do, I think that that’s exactly what has happened, I think that that’s the case. And we’ve all done this, I’ve been guilty of that myself, a hundred odd years ago, trying to play through an injury to play in a European Cup final, things like this here. So, you do do that. Viljami Sinisalo has come in and done very, very well, kept his place in the team. And I think that, yeah, but just really, again, reiterate, disappointed to hear the news, and I’m surprised myself that it was as severe as that. But I’m no medical expert, and it was disappointing.”

Q: Did you know Kasper was planning to announce it in that way? It seems like it caught a lot of people by surprise?

Martin O’Neill:  “No, I didn’t think that Kasper was going to announce it, but he was with his dad at the time, and I think the dad was telling him, you must announce it here today. I’m joking, I’m joking. Yeah, so I think that Tim Williamson, our physio, was aware that the scan had shown up much worse than we thought. But, yeah, so I wasn’t expecting to hear that. I didn’t hear it first hand, I heard it second hand, but, you know, it is what it is.”

UEFA Nations League: Portugal – Denmark Denmark’s goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel is in pain in the shoulder during the UEFA Nations League playoff match in League A between Portugal and Denmark at Josà Alvalade Stadium in Lisbon, Portugal on Sunday, March 23, 2025. (Photo: Bo Amstrup Ritzau Scanpix)

Q: It seems as if it sort of stemmed back from this coming international break last year. In your first interim spell of the season, were you aware of any injury issues he had at that point? Of his shoulder?

Martin O’Neill:  “Yeah, I was, yes. But he was, as I said to you, you can get injections, you want to keep going. I thought he was really terrific in my first spell here, the six or seven weeks that I was involved. He made some big, big saves in games. I go back even to the very first game that we played, he made a save, otherwise, Falkirk would have taken the lead. Then he made a save against Rangers, kept us in it, and then in Feyenoord, a really good save at an important stage of the game. Big saves for us, so he did really well. But like anything else, you know, you go from game to game. But I didn’t think that, no, even then, while I knew that there was a problem with his shoulder, which he had had for some considerable time, again, I didn’t think it was as severe as it’s turned out to be.”

UEFA Nations League: Portugal – Denmark. Referee Slavko Vincic looks at Denmark’s goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel, who is in pain in the shoulder during the UEFA Nations League playoff match in League A at Josà Alvalade Stadium in Lisbon, Portugal on Sunday, March 23, 2025. (Photo: Bo Amstrup Ritzau Scanpix)

Q: Had there been any communication at that point that, I know things seemed to have worsened in the last week or a couple of weeks anyway, was there any suggestion at that point that he might need to undergo surgery possibly earlier in the season?

Martin O’Neill: “Well, hindsight, great thing. That I don’t know. I genuinely don’t know. As far as I know, he had a problem, probably about the same time last year, but he came through that and ended up having an excellent season for the football club. Yeah, I wasn’t aware of, certainly my first spell, I knew that he had a problem with his shoulder, but he seemed to get through the games and, well, you know, you just don’t want to flog someone to death. He was doing fine, and he didn’t think it was a major problem at that time.”

Kasper Schmeichel at fault for at least two of the Stuttgart goals in the the UEFA Europa League 2025/26 Knockout Play-off First Leg match between Celtic FC and VfB Stuttgart at Celtic Park on February 19, 2026. (Photo by WM Sport Media/Getty Images)

Q: In hindsight, would you think that continually using injections to play rather than fix the problem, has that hindered his performances, the team’s results?

Martin O’Neill:  “Well, the results, I think you’re probably referring really to the Stuttgart game as much as anything else. In terms of results, the results have been fine, both with him in the side and obviously with young Sinisalo in the team, so they’ve been fine. He came back, he played, he being Kasper, played after Stuttgart, he played against Hibs, made a big save for us. We didn’t win the game, but he did make a big save for us to prevent Hibs from taking the lead to begin with before the event that they did do.

Kasper Schmeichel of Celtic looks dejected during the UEFA Europa League 2025/26 Knockout Play-off First Leg match between Celtic FC and VfB Stuttgart at Celtic Park on February 19, 2026. (Photo by WM Sport Media/Getty Images)

“Players have played through the pain barrier and while you don’t, hopefully, that is something that you don’t think is going to be a wrecking of one’s career, you think, well, OK, we should try and get through this for a game or two and see how we go. But that’s all. When it became apparent just recently that it was as severe as I said to you, it was a surprise to me.”

Q: On how it was announced on CBS in America. Were you happy with how that was announced to the fans?

Martin O’Neill:  “Well, if that was the first announcement, obviously I would have preferred to have heard it myself. Way back, way back in my time, if you didn’t report it first of all to the football club, you could actually get a fine! So I need to go and check to see how his contract is! It’s a really good point, we could do with some of that money!”

Q: Were those assessments done externally then rather than with the club’s medical staff?

Martin O’Neill: “No, the club knew. The club were aware of the test that he was doing.”

Q: So were you surprised then that that wasn’t communicated to you in any way, the results of it?

Martin O’Neill:  “Well, it happened rather quickly. Believe it or not, sometimes I can be incommunicado. I can be somewhere and not actually wanting to hear some news or other.”

27 August 2000: Chris Sutton and Henrik Larsson of Celtic during the Scottish Premier League match against Rangers at Celtic Park in Glasgow, Scotland. Celtic won the game 6 – 2. Mandatory Credit: Stu Forster /Allsport

Q: Chris Sutton labelled him selfish, putting Denmark before Celtic, not mentioning Celtic when he announced it on CBS. Your thoughts on that?

Martin O’Neill:  “I like Chris. I like Chris a lot, but not that much! Chris is entitled his own opinion, but it’s no serious issue for me. I don’t know whether he would have been in a position to know that it was all about Denmark. I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to Chris. I will do now, for him to mind his own business. No, it’s not. He’s entitled an opinion.”

Alistair Johnston of Celtic celebrates scoring his team’s second goal during the Premier Sports League Cup match between Celtic and Falkirk at Celtic Park on August 15, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Q: We saw Alistair Johnson on the grass this afternoon. Can you give an update on him and general squad health for anyone else as well, if they don’t mind?

Martin O’Neill:  “I’m going to change profession. I’m going to become the medic here. And then Tim Williamson can come and answer the football questions and get on with it. He’s doing really well. He’s really, really doing very, very well indeed. His national side want him to go for a week over there. We at this minute would probably prefer him to stay. I don’t think it’s going to be a big issue as long as he’s training somewhere. We need to have some sort of bounce games or something like that there for him to play in here as soon as possible. He’s doing great, by all accounts, and I want to see him from a distance, because you boys will tell me better than I would know, but apparently he’s a really decent player. Really decent player. So that’s big news for us if he can come back for the part of the run-in anyway. So that would be great.”

HOUSTON,TEXAS. JUNE 24th: Alistair Johnston 2 of Canada during the match between Canada and El Salvador in the Concacaf Gold Cup 2025, held at the Shell Energy Stadium, in Houston ,Texas PHOTO BY FABIAN MEZA/ STRAFFON

Q: Are you looking after the national break then for him to be fully integrated or does it still look like a period after that?

Martin O’Neill:  “I’m hoping that wouldn’t be that long afterwards, really. So if he does decide that, and Tim, I need to ask. I’m sorry lads, what happens here is that I should really get an update before I walk in here. It does help, and just flying things off the cuff as I’ve tried to do for most of my life, to tell you the truth. So I will find out. He’s doing fine. I’m not genuinely trying to hide anything because, it’s an interesting one, the cameras are allowed in here, so everybody knows who’s training with us anyway. So I might ban that! I’ll think about that for next week!

Q: Any more on Alistair being called up by Canada?

Martin O’Neill:  “No, I think what they want is, because I think he’s got a good influence as well. Apparently, he’s pretty influential around the dressing room here, but he’s good. And I think they just want to see what he’s like, how they’re doing. I don’t mind, really. And I don’t think he genuinely minds either one way or the other. Canada, I’m sure he would like to go and see how things are, because they’re in the World Cup, and he wouldn’t mind meeting up with some of his teammates who are there too. But now that he is getting close to being involved with us on a permanent basis, then it might be better if he does the work here.

“But listen lads, honestly, if in three days’ time or four days’ time you find him somewhere in Quebec or Ontario or somewhere like that there, you come back and say, that manager doesn’t even have a clue where his players are. And you would be right!”

Arne Engels celebrates after he scores his team’s fourth goal from the penalty spot during the Premier League match between Celtic and Kilmarnock at Celtic Park on November 09, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Q: In terms of Arne Engels, is he?

Martin O’Neill:  “Arne’s doing really fine. I think he is somewhere in North Africa doing some rehab! Yeah, he is! He’s in North Africa! I think he moved from North Africa to southern Mexico! Yeah, but he’s doing rehab somewhere and hopefully he’s around. If you just give me two minutes, I’ll go up and check to see. Let me phone him. I didn’t see him actually. Oh, you saw him? Oh, he’s back. He’s back. Brilliant. Thank you. Anybody else?”

Q: Callum McGregor?

Martin O’Neill: “Oh, brilliant. Well, Calum, he did his rehab somewhere in Lanarkshire. So luckily we kept him. He’s fine. He’s going to be fine. We’ll see how he is tomorrow. That was his first real day with the team. But he’s raring to go.”

Q: How do you feel about Dundee United and the state of their pitch? Difficult pitch, difficult surface and a difficult team to play against?

Martin O’Neill:  “Just exactly that. Absolutely. I think it’s a really difficult game for us. We know that anyway. So as long as we’re mentally prepared for that, that’s absolutely fine. I’m sure even with a couple of days’ sun, I don’t think the pitch is going to improve that much. I think it’ll be obviously the same for both sides. So we just get on with it. It’s a big game. There’ll be plenty of twists and turns between now and the end of the season.

Watch Martin O’Neill’s pre-match mainstream media conference ahead of the Dundee United v Celtic match in the Scottish Premiership on Sunday lunchtime below….

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