Celtic's Champions League Challenge: O’Neill's Strategy and Midfield Concerns
Martin O’Neill will go into his first Champions League tie in more than 20 years without one of the midfielders he had hoped to lean on – and he accepts why.
The Celtic manager revealed Engels opted not to feature in the play-off, wary of picking up an injury with the transfer window still open.
“He didn’t want to play in the matches in case he got injured,” O’Neill explained, describing the decision as understandable, even if it has left him short in the middle of the park at a critical moment.
Midfield gap and transfer scramble
Celtic are now chasing a replacement, but time is tight.
“We’re still in the process of trying to do that,” O’Neill said. “We haven’t been able to get someone in, in time, to do that. But there are a number of players that we’re looking at and hopefully we will by the end of the transfer window.”
The urgency is obvious. The stakes are too.
For O’Neill, though, the real prize is not the balance sheet. It is the anthem, the lights, the stage.
The prestige of the Champions League, he insists, still outranks the money it pours into the club. The financial boost matters, of course – it would allow Celtic to attract more quality before the group phase – but the old-school manager is driven first by the competition itself.
Hatate interest and a challenge laid down
One of the players already in the building, Reo Hatate, has attracted attention.
O’Neill confirmed there has been interest in the Japanese midfielder. “But I don’t think there’s been anything definitive. That may well happen in the next week,” he said.
If Hatate stays, there will be no special treatment, only an open door and a clear challenge. O’Neill would be happy to see him stay and fight to rediscover the form that made him, in the manager’s words, “one of best midfielders in Scotland” two seasons ago.
The message is simple: stay, compete, climb back to that level.
Respect for LASK and the first-leg equation
Before any transfer business is concluded, Celtic must deal with the Austrian champions.
LASK, O’Neill warns, are no soft touch. He calls them a “very fine side” and expects a “very, very difficult” tie.
“We’ve watched them now on numerous occasions. We’ve had people watching them live,” he said. “They are very fast up front as well, lots of good players on the side. And they’re very, very strong. Physically strong as well.”
The plan is clear enough. A first-leg lead at home would be “lovely”, as O’Neill puts it, but he refuses to dress it up as a do-or-die scenario. If Celtic cannot carve out an advantage before heading to Austria, it will not be, in his words, “the end of the world”.
What he does insist on is readiness.
Celtic, he says, are “ready for the challenge”, and he places the responsibility firmly on the dressing room. “It’s up to the players now as much as anything else. I think the quality that we brought in will bear fruit during the course of the season.”
O’Neill’s Champions League return – and Rangers on the horizon
At 74, O’Neill sounds almost amused by his own return to this level.
“I didn’t think last September or October I’d be sitting here thinking about a Champions League game,” he admitted. “If I was, I’d certainly be watching it on TV.”
Now he is back in the thick of it, and he is relishing every second.
“There are challenges in this Champions League. You could get nothing else but excited about it, which is fantastic, especially at my age.”
Beyond Europe, another familiar fire flickers in the distance. Celtic have been drawn away to Rangers in the League Cup quarter-finals.
“I’m looking forward to it when it comes to it,” O’Neill said. “Naturally, the concentration is totally in these two games. But it is what it is. We’re drawn away from home again.”
For now, the focus is LASK, the play-off, and a place back at the top table. The noise of a trip to Ibrox can wait. The Champions League will not.
