After thumping Hearts the Hoops are now looking towards a must-win Europa League clash

Martin O’Neill is confident Callum Osmand can shake off his injury scare for Thursday’s win or bust Europa League Celta Vigo clash.

The attacker notched a double as the Hoops ran amok in a SEVEN goal hammering of Hearts at Celtic Park.

Osmand was taken off at half-time with a hamstring issue but O'Neill insisted the youngster’s injury jinx has not struck again after battling back from two brutal spells out.

The former Fulham kid is in the Celtic Euro squad with the Parkhead men needing to get up and running on the back of defeats to Ferencvaros and Benfica.

The Hoops bounced back from their Lisbon lashing with a record 7-1 demolition of the Jambos to blast four points clear at the top of the Premiership before getting back to Euro duties this week.

O’Neill is convinced Celts can still make the knockout stages and said: “I know I said this when I left the interview room on Thursday night, people said, ‘what what's he talking about?’

“But I do think that's the case. But we need to win. We need to win the game because it's a home game, we have to try and win.

“We lost ground, not so much against the Benfica game, but we lost ground in the Ferencvaros game, so we got to win.

“And if we could that would definitely give us a big lift. If we don't, that would be three games gone, that's a long way back from there.

“It is a big match for us now. Really big game for us because we really need our home game, we need to get some points on the board.

“This will give us confidence to go in.

“We still might make a couple of changes in the side because it's pretty hectic.

“But sometimes maybe playing the games is better than having the whole week free.

“I say that now, I probably wouldn't have been saying that at all had we been beaten today.”

O’Neill expected Osmand to be on board – but Yang and Cameron Carter-Vickers won’t make the Parkhead clash.

The boss said: “He had a hamstring problem at halftime. I’m not surprised really because he's not played that much.

“It was more precautionary than anything else.

“It’s just that I was worried. Tim the physiotherapist said just leave him out, and I think he would have said that even if it had been 0-0.

“I think he wanted to continue for a while, but I think he saw sense, and I think he should be okay for Thursday.

"He deserved the chance last midweek.

“I think he and Hassan coming on at halftime gave us that a bit of impetus in the second half in the match on Thursday, so they both deserved to start the game.

“Callum did great, he has a goal-scoring instinct, there's no question about that.

“I'm not saying that wide left is his is his strongest position.

“He's small, so leading the line might be a difficult might be difficult for him, but playing alongside somebody quite strong, I think he could do really well.

“Listen, he wants to play anywhere as long as he's getting into the team.

“Yang is doing well, he's back on the on the grass as they say now, but no, he'll not be ready for a week or two yet.

“Cameron, the earliest with would probably be seeing him would be the Hibs game.”

O’Neill was thrilled to see Celts hit top gear against Hearts with Kieran Tierney and Camilo Duran also on target and Benjamin Nygren bagging a double along with Osmand’s brace.

Celts pounced on the Rangers slip up at Dundee to move clear – and sent out a statement of intent.

But O’Neill said: “It's probably too early to worry about a message.

“But I thought we played really well in the game, really well.

“A couple of early skirmishes around our penalty box, and then we get the goal from the first real proper attack.

“We scored from the corner, and we took it on from there. Some played really well today.

“I just think the manner in which we got breaking up play, getting forward, obviously finishing off the chances that we had.

“This time last week we created a lot of chances against Motherwell, didn't take them, today we took them, and that was probably the most pleasing thing.