Martin O’Neill says he is happy with Celtic’s summer transfer business, while admitting he would have preferred to get players through the door earlier.
Celtic completed a busy end to the window, with six players arriving in the final 48 hours and five of those deals being loans.
O’Neill was keen to stress his satisfaction with the squad now at his disposal.
He said: (TCW), “We’ve got some players in, so I’m really, really pleased. Genuinely pleased.”
“Well, I think that the difficulty, when you think about it, is that you only have to look at the UEFA list about the places that we would have had available for players, and some young lads here, players will be disappointed not being able to make that particular UEFA squad. So, there’s only so many places that we could fill.”
He added: “If we can avoid serious injury to the players here, people not being out for endless lengths of time, then yeah, I’m happy with it.”
O’Neill did show some frustration when asked again about Celtic leaving a lot of their business until late in the window.
“How many times are you going to ask me that?”
But he also accepted that getting signings in sooner would have been better.
“Ideally, it would be great to have got players in early to get them bedded in. It doesn’t matter. I’d be really happy to have the players that we have.”
“I sometimes concern myself about loan players coming in and maybe not having the club that they’re going to, seeing them as the club that they really want to play for.”
He did, however, point to Julian Araujo as an example of a loan player who fully embraced Celtic.
“Loans are sometimes a bit of a concern. It depends on the player.”
O’Neill’s message was ultimately clear. He is satisfied with the options he now has, even if the route to getting there was not as smooth or as early as he would have liked.
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