Stephen McGowan has questioned whether Celtic are going into the matches against LASK under-cooked.
The Herald reporter has a long standing record of being very accurate with Celtic transfer activity.
Almost three months on from winning the Scottish Cup Celtic have signed four players.
Only Kasper Hogh and Camilo Duran have started a match for their new club.
Several key figures from last season’s domestic double won’t be involved against the Austrian champions.
Daizen Maeda and Arne Engels have been sold for £32m.
Despite being wanted by Martin O’Neill Kelechi Iheanacho and Marcelo Saracchi have moved on elsewhere.
With Alistair Johnston out injured the quality in the Celtic side is spread thinner than O’Neill would have wanted.
Celtic could have made two changes to their Champions League squad yesterday. No fresh deals were concluded.
Speaking on the BBC Scotland Football podcast 4 minutes 45 seconds, McGowan said
I think that Celtic have made decent efforts to try and strengthen their squad in recent weeks.
The question in my mind is have they done enough?
Because ideally I still think that they would like to have a goalkeeper, a back up left-back. Nothing that they could do about Alistair Johnston’s injury but it is just worrying that with Arne Engels going- are they a wee bit under-cooked? Time will tell.
While not saying that Celtic are under-cooked McGowan does raise the question.
MCGOWAN RAISES THE RECRUITMENT ISSUES
With the squad thinned out the suspension of Alex Oxlaid-Chamberlain becomes a bigger issue. As does sending Paulo Bernardo out on loan.
Callum McGregor and Ben Nygren are certain starters in midfield against LASK.
There are cases for and against the selection of Mika Baur, Luke McCowan and Reo Hatate.
O’Neill will have to wrestle with all of those factors in his selection tonight. The XI that finish the match could be as important as those that start the game.
What can be reasonably expected is that Celtic will score goals.
Between them Kasper Hogh and Camilo Duran scored 10 times in last season’s Champions League.
Getting Celtic back to that stage is their task over the next two matches.
While activity and debate continues to strengthen the Celtic squad with just over a fortnight left in the transfer window.
Failure to beat LASK will see Celtic drop into the Europa League.
Down to the manager , either he’s ok with it all and sitting on his hands , or he’s not vocal enough
Martin is acting like he does not know whats going on around him, unfortunately he is a another board puppet and will accept what they give him till he leaves at end of season.
They have had months to replace a player like Arne and what do we get, the midfield is well short of quality and not knowing the Ox was suspended is a joke Nicholson still need’s replaced.
The perceived financial prize for CL qualification is £40 million sovs minimum ..agreed ? But the UEFA pot grows every year with tons more monies available for the clubs who do do so ..right ? So common sense would tell us that figure would grow too each year as the CL coffers grow ? Step forward the BBC Scottish version who reported that if Celtic overcome LASK to qualify then the prize money is £30 million pounds ! The national broadcaster undercuts £10 million pounds minimum from a possible CL bounty rather than getting behind Celtic flying the flag in Europe at the finest club competition there is and telling the truth about the financial rewards . It’s just another reason why Celtic is right not to invite the posse of cowpokes to the domestic pressers ….whoah boy !
BBC Scotland are pathological liars Valentines !