Confidence-sapped Celtic told to be braver as Martin O'Neill admits formation change may be in pipeline

Celtic suffered their second defeat in four days, following up Sunday’s 3-0 Premier Sports Cup quarter-final defeat by Rangers at Ibrox with this reversal at Celtic Park. They now must lick their wounds ahead of facing their arch rivals in the first Old Firm Premiership game of the season this weekend.

O’Neill lamented the concession of the Hungarians’ second goal, which came in first-half stoppage time and moments after Mika Baur levelled for Celtic.

”We started it off very very brightly with a number of balls that were flashed across the goal and no one there to put the ball in the net for us,” said O’Neill. “I thought their first proper attempt yielded a goal for them and put us in the back foot for a while. We come back into the game, got the equaliser just before half-time and then conceded a really poor goal.

“It's a huge frustration obviously, but it's also psychologically quite damning as well too. Just when you've fought your way back into the game and you're thinking well if you can't get an attack with the last minute that the fourth official puts up, the one minute, at least defend it properly and we didn't do that. That was really disappointing - it's not the start we wanted.

“We have seven games to try and get some points on the board and we'll try and do that and then just really need to concentrate now on Sunday.”

O’Neill admitted morale is dipping ahead of what is a huge match against Rangers. Celtic are top of the league with an 100 per cent record, but the visitors are the team with momentum.

“I think that confidence is a funny old thing because you can gain it slowly and it can ebb away so quickly,” said O’Neill. “I think confidence is a big thing, I think it's a big thing in the game anyway but if one or two players are lacking that then it's part of my job to restore that.

Celtic have ‘become tentative’

“I think that when you lose a little bit of confidence then you become tentative and I think this is it. I think that the great players play through a crisis of confidence that everybody's had at some stage or another, but for us we have to try and battle through them.

”We've got to try and get a little bit of energy back into the team again and just be prepared. Now how we restore confidence I think obviously is really essential and it's almost a cliched phrase. Get on the front foot, be on the front foot, one second balls. The part of the game that people seem to have some sort of disdain for but still exists.”

O’Neill also conceded that he is still working out his best team. “I think that will take a little bit of time,” he said, “because the football club here has been used to like 4-3-3 for quite some considerable time for quite a number of years as well, and I think that if we want to get the best out of our best players then we're going to have to find another way.

“I think some of the players who have come in are quite late. I don't think they've grasped what it's about. I think it's taken a little bit of time obviously when we're getting the players in.

“That might take a little bit of time. And of course bedding in and trying to get to know players. We signed a few quite late on and they have to get it, they have to get up to the sort of fitness levels that are demanded really of this league.”

O’Neill, with more than 1000 games as a manager, knows he has to delve into his own experience to assist his squad. “I think that it's as important for me as it is for the players,” added O’Neill. “I have to show some sort of leadership as well too. I've had plenty of low moments but the loss on Sunday, the loss tonight, it does hit you hard, no question about it.”