'All I could think': Celtic ace puts Hearts in rear view mirror and reveals love for Parkhead 'time machine'
Celtic midfielder opens up on Martin O’Neill’s fortnight in charge.
Luke McCowan says Celtic will put Hearts in their rear view mirror as they battle to keep their Scottish Premiership crown and rebuild their Parkhead fear factor.
The 27-year-old midfielder returned to the Celtic starting XI as the reigning champions moved to without seven points of their Tynecastle rivals with a 4-0 thumping of Kilmarnock on Sunday, with goals from Johnny Kenny, Kieran Tierney, Daizen Maeda, and Arne Engels ensuring they took full advantage of a rare slip up from Hearts, who drew 1-1 with Dundee United earlier in the afternoon.
Still with a game in hand on Derek McInnes’ side, Celtic will hope to close the gap even further in the weeks to come, though McCowan believes they’ll achieve more success if they simply concentrate on themselves rather than hoping for Hearts to drop points.
“The boys know that we've probably not started the season as well as what we wanted,” said McCowan. “They [Hearts] can’t be [in our thought process]. We can’t get into games hoping that they slip up. We just need to go into games where the main focus is us playing well, scoring goals, being the kind of threat we can be, making teams fear coming here. We need to get back into that mantra.
“The team's in an all right place, winning the semi-final, a couple of games in the league we’ve won. The attitude comes from us, the mentality comes from us, so we just need to keep pushing that. I'm sure if we do, we'll keep charging on and hopefully get more positive results.”
The former Dundee skipper also revealed what it has been like to play under interim boss Martin O’Neill, with the former Celtic boss winning three of his first four games in charge after being installed as the club’s interim manager following the resignation of Brendan Rodgers a fortnight ago.
“It's Martin O'Neill at the end of the day,” smiled McCowan. “He's got that aura and brings that motivating factor of what it means to play for this club, as did the previous manager as well. He just brings that different kind of speech before a game and just puts full belief in everybody that's in a squad and is really, really forward to everybody as well. He doesn't make you think anything. He just tells you how it is.
A boyhood fan of the club, the midfielder conceded it has been a surreal time to play under the 73-year-old Hoops icon, as he opened on the ‘time machine’ feeling around Parkhead over the last few weeks and why he is yet to pick O’Neill’s brains on his trophy laden spell at the club between 2000 and 2005.
“I'm too scared,” laughed McCowan. “I'm going to wait. It's too serious at the moment. We're all focusing on games, left, right and centre. There'll be a time for that if they are still about for international break because I'm not going anywhere. I thought I was in a time machine. Even Jota and Kieran coming back.
“When he [O’Neill] came in, all I could think about was the UEFA Cup final, what did he say in the dressing room? I could just ask Shaun [Maloney]. But It's been amazing. It's nice to have the gaffer here and what he brought before, he's obviously replicating that again.”
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