Martin O’Neill hailed Celtic’s spirit after watching them score a late winner for the third time in as many games — but admitted this past week in the dugout has left him drained.
First-half goals from Kilmarnock’s Tyreece John-Jules and Joe Hugill had the visitors on the ropes, before Sebastian Tounekti and Benjamin Nygren netted in the second period. Julian Araujo blasted home the winner in the 97th minute to ensure the champions kept their title hopes alive with a 3-2 win.
Following dramatic late victories over Dundee in the Scottish Cup and Livingston in the Premiership, O’Neill was delighted with his team’s resilience but admitted they can’t keep doing things the hard way.
The 73-year-old said: ‘Twenty-odd years ago, I managed a really fine team, got loads of spirit, loads of determination, always saw it to the end.
‘There were many (of the same) traits here about this side. They’ve shown fantastic character.
‘It’s both worrying me and, well, it’s not great for my health, but, overall, if that’s the way you have to win the games, you have to win them like that. But you just can’t keep doing that. I must be ecstatic, but also drained, really draining.’
While Araujo was the hero, O’Neill admitted the on-loan Bournemouth man was one of many who failed to impress in the first half.
He made three changes at the interval to spark a turnaround, but insisted he could have hooked plenty more.
‘Really poor first half, from our viewpoint,’ he said. ‘Could we have made seven changes at the time?
‘Seb (Tounekti) comes on, scores a great goal, gives us a little bit of width, he’s going to take people on.
‘I had thought about maybe starting Alex (Oxlade-Chamberlain), not sure in terms of fitness and things. He’s come on, he’s just an absolutely class player.
‘And big Tomas Cvancara comes on, what a turn for the final goal. So it was great to see them making big impacts second half.’
Asked about Araujo, he added: ‘He did great to arrive there in the box at that time. I haven’t seen it back the first time, but some of the lads were telling me he still had to put it into the net. So well done to him. He made up for some of his first-half recklessness.’
Killie boss Neil McCann was furious with the manner of the goals conceded.
Kilmarnock boss Neil McCann was angry at the way his team let a two-goal lead slip away
‘I’m angry because I truly believe we deserved something from the game,’ he said. ‘Clearly Celtic are going to come at us in the second half.
‘They had lots of substitutions to put us under a bit of pressure but I still felt we were right in the game.
‘It’s taken a bit of brilliance from Tounekti to get them back into the game. The second goal, it’s so disappointing.
‘We lost three goals against St Mirren where it was just second balls bouncing in the box and we didn’t deal with it.
‘The last one’s the sorest, clearly because it’s right at the end of the game and there’s a minute left.’
On the officials adding seven minutes stoppage-time, McCann said: ‘I’m not quite sure where they get seven minutes from. They seem to just make that up these days.’