Celtic manager Martin O'Neill has returned to full media duties at Lennoxtown after the club spent over £27 million on four major summer transfer signings. German midfielder Mika Baur became the latest arrival this week, moving from Paderborn for a minimum fee of £4.5 million.
The spending spree marks a significant shift for Celtic, who have grown from a shell of a club in the early 1990s into the financial powerhouse of Scottish football. Despite occasionally paying large fees for stellar names, the board has long faced criticism for bargain hunting and bloating the squad with mediocre players like Kwon Hyeok-kyu and Shin Yamada.
While low-cost signings such as Matt O'Riley yielded high profits, supporters protested last season after poor recruitment was compounded by the appointment of Wilfried Nancy. The latest transfer window has seen Celtic pay a record £11 million for Kasper Hogh from Bodo/Glimt, £5.5 million for Camilo Duran from Qarabag, and an initial £6 million for Haissem Hassan from Real Oviedo.
The new additions follow a period where Yamada arrived for minimal cost just a year after Celtic broke their transfer record twice to sign Adam Idah and Arne Engels.
Martin O'Neill on Celtic transfer quality
Speaking at Lennoxtown, O'Neill expressed hope that high-value recruitment would become the club's standard approach moving forward. He acknowledged that squad changes take time and negotiations were required before securing targets.
"I think if you're talking about quantity, there's a lot of players out there at this minute," O'Neill said. "Any football manager would say to you, you'd love to have the players in almost the day that you arrived at the football club. That wasn't going to happen. We had some negotiations to do and all that type of stuff."
O'Neill emphasized that the primary goal of the summer window was elevating the overall quality of the team. However, he noted that replacing key departures remains an ongoing challenge for the coaching staff.
"Overall, I think that the message was trying to get quality in. I think or I am hoping that the four players will show there is more quality in the side," O'Neill said. "But we have lost Arne (Engels) and that is difficult for us at this minute to immediately replace. We have a number of players who have left the football club. Hopefully, we can get one or two more in."
The manager added that squad depth will be vital regardless of European progress. "Even if we get knocked out of the Champions League, we are still in the Europa League," he said. "Those games are going to take their toll."
Manager health and Kilmarnock victory
O'Neill returned to work a week after being discharged from hospital following a minor procedure. He opted against managing from the touchline last weekend, choosing instead to watch Celtic's five-goal victory against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park from his hotel room.
"I watched it in the hotel room," O'Neill explained. "I'm ensconced there at this moment, but I'm hoping to move out. A lot of this had to do with my wife doing some sort of classes down in London at the time and we couldn't move because she was totally tied into them. So, I think that she's just going to postpone things now for a while and be up here."
Frontman Kasper Hogh scored a hat-trick during the win at Kilmarnock to get his Celtic career underway. Despite the comfortable scoreline, O'Neill admitted he remained tense throughout the match.
"After the second goal, I thought, 'We're in decent shape here'," O'Neill recalled. "But I don't know. I don't really get calm. Honestly, you're still kicking every ball. Because it's your team, you're looking at it from the normal perspective, as I would do."
O'Neill contrasted his emotions while managing Celtic with watching non-competitive matches as a neutral. He noted how differently he consumes football when his own team is not involved.
"Let's say, the Championship starts and you get the chance to watch Wolves," O'Neill said. "I wouldn't watch that from a managerial viewpoint at all. After 10 minutes of Mark Fotheringham saying Wolves are playing 4-3-3, I wouldn't know. I might not even know throughout the 90 minutes. I'm just watching them for the sake of watching."
Premier Sports Cup clash against Dundee United
Celtic enter today's Premier Sports Cup fixture against Dundee United on an 11-game winning run. The streak includes seven straight league wins to secure the title last season, along with victories in the Scottish Cup semi-final and final, and a perfect start to the current campaign.
The current form stands in contrast to last season's struggles under Nancy, when Celtic suffered a damaging defeat at Tannadice against Dundee United. The team performed poorly again when returning to Tannadice after O'Neill took charge.
"Yeah, we were really poor that day," O'Neill recalled. "Leaving the pitch out from it, we were really poor, didn't create anything. We had two chances. Kieran Tierney had one over the bar. And the other one was (Kelechi) Iheanacho, where he actually started the game. Outside that, we created nothing in the game. We deserved to lose the match. Honestly, it was a long way back."
Following that defeat, Celtic required a flawless run of results to recover their season and capture the league championship. O'Neill revealed how tight the margins were during that title run-in.
"I know we said in the dressing room that we'd have to win every game, which was seven matches," O'Neill said. "Deep in my heart, I was hoping that maybe we might be able to afford to draw one of the games. As it turns out, we couldn't."
Despite their ongoing 11-game winning streak, O'Neill remains cautious ahead of today's meeting with Dundee United. He highlighted Celtic's two away losses to United last season as reason for vigilance.
"The team lost twice away to United last season," O'Neill said. "I thought Dundee United played really well against Rangers in the opening game of the season, then Hearts hit them a couple of times with really fine goals last week. But no, this will be a difficult game for us."
