Martin O'Neill tells Celtic new players to 'cope' as Falkirk post-mortem begins

Martin O’Neill admits Celtic’s new players need to show they can handle the pressure of playing for the club following the 2-0 defeat to Falkirk.

Goals from Ethan Ross and Scott Tanser proved the difference as the home side racked up a fourth successive victory to move up to fourth in the table.

Celtic, in contrast, have now won just three of their last 10 matches as they passed up the chance to move seven points clear of Rangers at the top.

Celtic manager Martin O'Neill has been left with much to ponder after defeat by Falkirk. | SNS Group

Camilo Duran endured an off-day as he failed to score despite creating numerous chances, while Callum Osmand, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Mika Baur and Haissem Hassan also struggled. And O’Neill acknowledged it will take a strong mindset for the squad to come through this turbulent period.

He said: “You have to cope with the pressure to be a player here. And sometimes, as the great Tommy Burns once said, it might be easier to play against Celtic than for them at this stage.

“But hopefully we've enough players in the dressing room who've been big winners here, who can hopefully pull them through that. We have conceded some poor goals and haven’t kept a clean sheet for some time which is the essence of a championship team. But we’re still top and we need to address it. And that’s the way out of it.

“It’s Celtic Football Club. We’re not used to losing a lot of games. But we were in a much worse position this time last year so we have to buckle down and win a game in Europe [against Besiktas]. Thursday is a big game and then the following Sunday is massive [against Kilmarnock] before we go into the international break.”

Celtic had 24 shots throughout the 90 minutes with nine on target but couldn’t find a way past Scott Bain who made a number of impressive stops against his former club.

“I’m naturally disappointed to have lost the game,” added O’Neill. “We had a lot of chances. Their goalie was magnificent but naturally we’ve lost so I’m very disappointed.

“At half-time I thought we were still in the game. I thought we’d played decent stuff. If you concede a magnificent goal you take it in your stride. When you concede a bad goal then it’s tough to come back. And then the goalie makes some saves and it’s frustrating. Despite mistakes at the back, we had enough chances to get back.”

This was Falkirk’s first win over Celtic since March 2007 and John McGlynn praised his players for a big performance.

He said: “Huge credit to my players. It was a remarkable shift. I don’t want to take anything away from the outfield players but Scott Bain had the game of his life. That’s our fourth win on the bounce, and three clean sheets in a row so I’m ecstatic.

“Beating Rangers or Celtic was one of the boxes left to tick. Thankfully we’ve done that. We’ve climbed the table and we look forward to Tynecastle next week.”