Everybody wants Hearts to win - Celtic boss O'Neill

Celtic manager Martin O'Neill believes "everybody wants Hearts to win" as he prepares his side for Saturday's Scottish Premiership title decider.

Defending champions Celtic host Hearts (12:30 BST), needing to win to overtake them into first place. A win or a draw for Hearts would take the league trophy to Tynecastle for the first time since 1960.

O'Neill was asked about the fallout from the award of a penalty in Celtic's midweek win at Motherwell, which kept his side within a point of leaders Hearts.

At 2-2, Motherwell's Sam Nicholson jumped with Auston Trusty and, after a VAR intervention, John Beaton ruled Nicholson had committed a handball.

Hearts manager Derek McInnes described the award as "disgusting" and said his side were "up against everybody". Other prominent pundits have questioned the spot-kick, which was converted by Kelechi Iheanacho.

But O'Neill said: "It's obviously been magnified because of the occasion as much as anything else.

"Am I surprised? No, I'm not surprised, because everybody wants Hearts to win. It's really as simple as that.

"Everybody outside Celtic and the Celtic diaspora wants Hearts to win.

"And so if it wasn't Hearts, it would be Rangers, it would be somebody else. That's the nature of it."

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Speaking specifically about the penalty award, O'Neill said: "One, I think it's a penalty. I think he's handled the ball. When you see it again properly, it is a penalty.

"In the wider scheme of things, I think that we, everybody should be looking at this. Throughout Europe, we have seen penalties given when we all think, 'well, that wouldn't have happened years ago', it wouldn't have done.

"It looks very, very harsh. This should be a major point of discussion in the summer time, to have a look again, to see what they're doing. And I know sometimes in European football, it's a wee bit different to ours, it shouldn't be, it should be uniform.

"It should be absolutely, it should be straightforward. In this accidental handball, hands in unnatural positions and stuff like this here, people maybe even being pushed into situations - think all of that's got to be looked at.

"But, as the rules stand at this minute, that was a penalty."

O'Neill can take his haul of trophies won as Celtic manager to nine by winning the side's next two matches. After hosting Hearts on Saturday, Celtic face Neil Lennon's Dunfermline Athletic in the Scottish Cup final on 23 May (15:00). O'Neill, who signed Lennon for Celtic in 2000, expects these two games to be his last with the club.

He is in his second interim spell as Celtic boss this season after stepping in between Brendan Rodgers and Wilfried Nancy's tenures and returning after the latter.

Between 2000 and 2005, O'Neill oversaw three league triumphs, three in the Scottish Cup and a League Cup win as part of a treble. O'Neill also twice lost the league title on the final day of the season during this period.

"Really looking forward to it now and why shouldn't we? It's a big, big game," O'Neill said of Hearts' visit.

"We have to win it, Hearts don't so the advantage is with them in that aspect but we're going out all guns blazing to try and win.

"The game's in the balance. We're at home, we have to win. Hearts have to just avoid defeat. It'll be a tough game for both teams.

"If we can win, then somewhere along the way I think we've deserved to win it. It's the number of points that you end up with at the end of the season that determines these things.

"In terms of the atmosphere, it will be electric. There is no question about it."