Neil Lennon has spoken about his transfer market frustrations, specifically in bringing in a new right-back, or two.
The departures of Mikael Lustig, Cristian Gamboa and Jeremy Toljan have left Celtic exposed in that area of the pitch with Kris Ajer expected to continue out of position tomorrow against Nomme Kalju.
Hatem Abd Elhamed has been suggested as a possible solution but the soon-to-be-former Hapoel Be’er Sheva man has mainly played in central defence over the last two seasons.
Lennon is well aware of his side’s problem position, on July 14 the Daily Record reported him saying:
It’s obvious we need a right-back. We’re looking to get one in. Maybe if we negotiate the second leg we’ll get one or two players in for the next round because the squad still needs a bit of quality and depth.
We spent four hours on Wednesday on one or two positions. It’s a lengthy process. I spoke to Brendan Rodgers about it and they were looking for a couple of years to get someone in to challenge Mika and it was difficult to find.
Mika is a brilliant player, 77 caps for Sweden, he has played World Cups, European Championships, Champions League. He was a top, top player.
At today’s media conference Lennon said:
????? NL: “If you can negotiate this tie then we can hopefully look at strengthening the side going into the third round. It can be a slow process at times but you want quality.” #UCL #CELKAL
— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) July 23, 2019
Celtic have until 11pm to register any new signing but it seems unlikely that anyone will be added and thrown straight into the side.
Nir Bitton and Jozo Simunovic look like starting in central defence against Nomme leaving new bhoy Christopher Jullien waiting to make his competitive debut.