Celtic's O'Neill on Champions League Play-off Challenges
Martin O’Neill admits he wanted Engels to stay for Celtic’s Champions League play-off. The midfielder refused.
“He didn’t want to play in the matches in case he got injured,” O’Neill explained, accepting the logic even as it left him short. The manager called the stance understandable, but it has forced Celtic into a late scramble in the market.
They are still hunting a replacement.
“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 clock is ticking, and the backdrop could hardly be bigger.
Prestige over pay day
For O’Neill, the lure of the Champions League is not about the balance sheet. The stage itself is the prize.
He is clear: the prestige of reaching the group phase matters more to him than the money it brings in. The finances, though, still count. That income, he believes, would allow Celtic to strengthen again before the league stage and add the extra “couple” of players needed to carry the fight deeper into Europe.
The squad could yet change in another key area. There has been interest in Reo Hatate, and O’Neill did not hide it.
“There has been interest,” he confirmed. “But I don’t think there’s been anything definitive. That may well happen in the next week.”
If a bid lands and the player wants to go, Celtic will have a decision to make. If Hatate stays, O’Neill would welcome a fightback.
He insists he would have “no problem” with the Japanese midfielder staying put and battling to rediscover the form that, two seasons ago, made him “one of best midfielders in Scotland”.
LASK test looms large
Before any of that, there is a tie to win. And O’Neill is under no illusions about the size of the task.
Austrian champions LASK, he says, are a “very fine side” and the play-off will be “very, very difficult” for Celtic.
“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 first leg in Glasgow offers a chance to seize control. O’Neill would love a lead to take to Austria, but he refuses to treat it as a make-or-break night.
A first-leg advantage would be “lovely”, he admitted, but “not the end of the world” if Celtic fail to build one, so long as they stay alive in the tie.
What matters now, he stresses, is the players.
Celtic, he says, are “ready for the challenge”.
“It’s up to the players now as much as anything else,” O’Neill said. “I think the quality that we brought in will bear fruit during the course of the season.”
O’Neill’s Champions League return
At 74, O’Neill is back on a stage he once lit up. It is his first Champions League tie in more than 20 years, and he sounds genuinely thrilled by the prospect.
“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 in the dugout again, chasing nights he thought had passed him by.
“There are challenges in this Champions League,” he said. “You could get nothing else but excited about it, which is fantastic, especially at my age.”
The domestic battles are never far away, even as Europe dominates his thoughts. Celtic have been drawn away to Rangers in the League Cup quarter-finals, another seismic date on the horizon.
“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 clear. Replace Engels, resolve Hatate’s future, and find a way past LASK.
Everything else – even a trip to Ibrox – can wait.
