GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - APRIL 25: BBC Sport Scotland microphone pictured ahead of a William Hill Championship match between Partick Thistle and Falkirk at Wyre Stadium at Firhill, on April 25, 2025, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Craig Foy/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Martin O’Neill quickly slapped down the loaded questions of Alasdair Lamont ahead of Celtic’s Champions League Play Off against LASK.
The BBC reporter and commentator got the obvious questions about Austin Trusty and Alistair Johnston out the road with his first questions.
Trusty missed training this morning but has travelled to Austria and is in contention to play tomorrow night.
Johnston will be out until October which could be five weeks or nine weeks away. No detail was given on the type of injury suffered.
And with that Lamont was off and running trying to get transfer news out of the Celtic boss.
There is a duty to try and get information. There is also a duty to listen and read the room. O’Neill has absolutely no interest over the next 24 hours.
Lamont is of course no friend of Celtic. Like his long term colleague Kenny Macintyre at the BBC he detests all things Celtic.
The last decade has felt like a century for Lamont who has spent his entire career inside the BBC bubble. Protected from reality.
Famously in 2021 after Celtic played Ferencvaros off the park in a 2-0 win he opened the media conference by asking Ange Postecoglou if he felt that Celtic were worth the three points.
Lamont will be providing radio commentary tomorrow. Fans wanting to watch the match will be watching TNT Sport who won’t have pundits like Pat Nevin, James McFadden or Andy Halliday.
O’NEILL- MASTER OF THE SCOTTISH MEDIA
LAMONT: Is defence also an area that you feel you need to strengthen before the transfer window closes?
O’NEILL:
Yeah, I think that we need to have a look. I mean, if you consider that Kieran Tierney is our only left-sided full-back, in that sense, we’ll have a little look.
But I really will not be concentrating on anything at all until after the game.
Regardless of what the result is, whichever competition we happen to be in, we’ve got some days before the transfer deadline, and I hope that we will get some people in.
LAMONT: On that front, is there anything to update fans on in terms of transfers?
O’NEILL:
No, there’s nothing to update on.
And at that point another reporter came in with a question about whether strengthening the squad was dependent on the outcome of tomorrow’s match.
There wasn’t a single question about what O’Neill expects from LASK.
Celtic Communications Manager Iain Jamieson lined up a separate conference for his newspaper buddies with those comments embargoed until 10.30pm tonight.
Will their be any questions about prostitution of the new clubs manager Tomorrow do you think
The guy asking the questions after Lament was Paul Barnes …another BBC Scottish version scoop . Now we all know one of the main reasons why the BBC doesn’t get invited to the domestic pressers at Celtic Park ? Travelling around Austria on horseback ..no doubt !
I was listening to radio Scotland last week and found myself shouting at the words of their “so called ” award winning Tom English who went to say that Celtic wouldn’t win the game and they got lucky last season. They went to him at half time and could hear him choking on his words.
MON just tell them to feck off and insist he will only answer questions that they’ve been instructed to ask or they don’t get any interviews.