MOTHERWELL, SCOTLAND - AUGUST 02: Sky Sports Pundits Chris Sutton, James McFadden and Kris Boyd (L-R) watch on during a William Hill Premiership match between Motherwell and Rangers at Fir Park Stadium, on August 02, 2025, in Motherwell, Scotland. (Photo by Craig Foy/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Chris Sutton is taking nothing for granted against LASK tomorrow night.
The former Celtic striker has been a voice of concern for the best part of 18 months about transfer issues at his old club.
That timeline goes back to the sale of Kyogo Furuhashi to Rennes without a replacement striker coming in.
At that stage Celtic were preparing for a Champions League Round of 16 Play Off.
Tomorrow night the stakes are even higher.
Taking a 3-0 lead to LASK gives Celtic a great cushion but no-one watching the first leg will be taking anything for granted.
Celtic’s victory was mainly down to three signings made in the last 15 months.
Ben Nygren, Camilo Duran and Kasper Hogh have all added an attacking edge to Celtic’s play.
Thankfully there seems to be a chemistry among those players. The challenge of Celtic and reaching the Champions League seems to inspire rather than intimidate them.
SUTTON KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT IS NEEDED AT CELTIC
And with that in mind Sutton is looking for more of the same in the 10 days remaining in the transfer window.
In the Daily Record, Sutton highlighted:
O’Neill is not a man to make public demands but there was a telling comment after Wednesday’s game about Celtic being in the plus side this summer in terms of his spending and wage bill. He’s right.
A lot has been made of them investing almost £30m in the team – but they have also brought in £35m in sales, and the sheer volume of departures will have brought down the wage bill.
O’Neill needs more reinforcements. It’s too late now regarding the second leg against LASK and I suspect they might wait to see if they do get to the Champions League before deciding just how big they go in the remainder of the window.
If they can get there though, Celtic do have to get serious. Have they got enough already to cope with the Premiership?
Maybe so. The ambitions have to be higher though. Making an impact in Europe has to be the aim.
Without question the Celtic board has taken a gamble going into the Champions League Play Off.
Once again boosting the bank balance has been the summer priority ahead of improving the team on the park.
Three of the four summer signings played essential roles in last week’s 3-0 win over LASK.
With three more similar type signings the return leg would be less challenging.
Celtic should have enough to get through on Tuesday night but much more is needed if this transfer window is to be deemed a success.
The two transfer windows last season were about as bad as it gets.
Duran, Hogh, Mika Baur and Haissem Hassan has changed the direction of Celtic recruitment.
That direction needs to be maintained. After the miseries of January it seems that O’Neill has a major say in recruitment.
The Celtic squad on the evening of September 3 will determine how successful that has been. Alongside the identity of the UEFA competition that they’ll be playing in through the autumn and winter.
Daily Record etc absolutely choking for us to get beat
Same modus operandi from the dinosaur board. Tried to hoodwink fans by buying first when they were as always stashing the cash in the background. Be a difficult game tomorrow night. The only good thing is that the team have spent a little longer together. Lask are going to have to go for it which hopefully means we can catch them on the break. I believe we will score it’s the conceding that’s the worry.
So many times in Europe in the last decade we have found ourselves 1 down inside 10 mins, sometimes even inside a few mins.
We simply cannot afford to be switched off like that at the start of the game, if we can keep it level for the first 20mins I think we should settle into a rhythm and see it out.
This ain’t done. I’m old enough to remember the Basle qually in 2002 (MONs last one), beat them 3-1 and thought we were through. They scored early on and that gave them all the momentum. Got to avoid that. 10 degrees cooler there than its been, that helps us.