Martin O’Neill on Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s calming Celtic role

The Scottish champions established a 2–0 lead before half-time through goals from Daizen Maeda and Kieran Tierney. Falkirk responded in the second half, with Kyrell Wilson pulling one back with a spectacular strike.

As nerves grew at Celtic Park, O’Neill highlighted Oxlade-Chamberlain’s late introduction as decisive in regaining control. The former Arsenal and Liverpool midfielder came on in the 78th minute and helped steady the team.

Maeda then added his second goal shortly after the Ox coming on, sealing a 3–1 win and ensuring Celtic saw out the match comfortably.

Speaking post-match via Celtic TV, O’Neill said: “I think the introduction of, I know it was only for the last 15 minutes, but I thought that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain brought a calmness to us at the end of it. Just to settle us down again and take it on from there.”

With just four fixtures remaining, Celtic’s task is straightforward, maximum points will guarantee the Scottish Premiership title.

O’Neill’s side are next in action away to Hibernian on Sunday, before a demanding run-in to close the campaign.

The Hoops are set to take on the Ibrox club, Motherwell and Hearts in their final three matches, a sequence that could ultimately decide the destination of the title.

“I think that we’ve got a tough task next week [against Hibs],“ O’Neill added. “Honestly, we can only treat each game on its merit, really, and that’s all it is. I think that we’ve battled, we’ve been battling strongly.”

“I think we showed some fine play today. We made some mistakes in the game, which could have been costly.”

“I thought there was a little period for 10 or 15 minutes, maybe less, it looked from where I am, remember, I’m negative, so it looked as if we were losing a bit of control. I thought that Falkirk played through us a few times, but I thought we got a grip of that.”

Conor Spence