Martin O’Neill shares Celtic and Rangers’ surprise following Jim White’s inquiry on Graeme Souness’ comments

Celtic dropped points against Aberdeen on Saturday but gained points on Rangers.

Celtic drew 2-2 with the Dons at Parkhead, in an intriguing contest between two teams with perfect records.

Brendan Rodgers would have been angry after the final whistle because his team squandered a 2-0 lead and only earned a point.

This was an opportunity for Philippe Clement’s team to capitalise on the top two dropping points, but Rangers were defeated against Kilmarnock 24 hours later.

That means the champs have a six-point lead over their opponents, which is certain to grow as the season progresses.

Rangers are three points closer to fifth-placed Motherwell than Celtic, and the weekend’s events will be covered on talkSPORT on Monday morning.

Jim White asks Martin O’Neill about Celtic and Rangers gap

As you can expect, the bookmakers have made Celtic clear favourites to win the title, to the point that you should avoid betting on them.

O’Neill was informed of this prior to being asked about the disparity by host Jim White, and he stated that he had never expected or seen it to be so large, as reported by talkSPORT (21/10/24 at 11:40 am).

The renowned manager made it plain that Rangers are ‘unrecognisable’ and a far cry from his days in the dugout.

“2-0 up at Celtic Park, that would have been a disappointment,” admitted O’Neill on the Aberdeen draw. “But that’s all it is. Then, their nearest rivals Rangers losing the following day, so it’s almost like a win situation.”

White then asked: “Have you ever imagined your time when you were at Celtic that they would be 1-14 to win the title.”

O’Neill responded: “No, no. Absolutely not. Absolutely (you had to previously graft like hell against Rangers to get over the line). Even times when we won the league by big margins, you still thought, Rangers under Alex (McLeish) were really strong and under Advocaat were really, really strong. So, you could never take your eye off the ball, at all. I have been saying for some weeks now, they are really, really ordinary Rangers. Really ordinary football team. Absolutely (unrecognisable team to the one I faced).”