Martin O’Neill has revealed he plans to “intensify” Celtic’s workload this pre-season after a hectic period last season.
The Hoops are currently travelling to Portugal for their summer training camp following time spent in Republic of Ireland.
O’Neill’s side played a friendly against Shelbourne in Cork last night in what ended in a 1-1 draw but the manager is adamant it is all about fitness levels at this stage of the process.
The manager, made permanent in June, knows his interim stint last term made it difficult to really implement his ideas and his work ethic demands. But this campaign he feels things will be different as he plans to hammer home his thoughts and use double sessions to drum into his players how he wants them to break opponents down.
“We’re going to intensify the work,” O’Neill told Celtic TV. “It’s really important for us now. We’ll have double training sessions as much as possible.
“More or less practising things we were hoping to do in the course of the season that I don’t think we had the opportunity to do because it was a mad rush from January onwards. Just ways of breaking teams down a wee bit more quickly.
“And when people get into one-on-one situations, have the confidence to take people on.”
O’Neill has clearly identified where the squad struggled last season at times as they often huffed and puffed without any real end product.
Daizen Maeda came good towards the end of the season but the attackers who arrived on loan in January failed to really improve the team’s output and the Northern Irishman wants to address that.
One player who could produce the desired moments of magic in the attacking third of the pitch this coming season is incoming forward Camilo Duran.
The Colombian is closing in on his £5.5million switch from Qarabag in Azerbaijan and he is expected to offer a fresh creative spark the club have been lacking in recent times.
O’Neill acknowledged that the deal is almost over the line and that the playmaker should join his new teammates in Portugal for their next friendly outing against Sporting CP in the coming days.
