Celtic is gambling with Champions League football as the draw makes clear.

Today we discovered our Champions League play-off opponents, and Celtic will face LASK of Austria. They are a team I do not know a great deal about, but then I knew very little about Kairat Almaty last season, apart from the fact that they had come through several qualifying rounds to reach us and knew how to make themselves extremely difficult to beat.

What I know about LASK is simple enough. They are the Austrian champions, having won a domestic league-and-cup double last season, and that fact alone should be enough to make all of us take them seriously. They may not be a household name, and they sit below Celtic in the UEFA coefficient rankings, but they have just finished ahead of every other club in a tough and demanding domestic league. They are not pushovers, and they are not mugs.

Celtic, meanwhile, are scandalously ill-equipped for this tie and may go into it even weaker than we are now. Arne Engels appears likely to leave. Alistair Johnston may follow him. Should anyone believe those players will be replaced quickly, that person has not been paying attention to the way this club operates.

There is a very real danger of another Champions League exit here.

At this stage last year, I knew we were in trouble. Brendan Rodgers had been warning for weeks that the squad was not up to the required standard. More than anything, he had stressed the need to reinforce the forward areas because Celtic had lost goals, creativity and attacking power.

Yet there was a blithe and arrogant assumption that Kairat Almaty were not serious opponents and that Celtic would simply swat them aside. I still hear variations of “we should have had enough to beat them” to this day.

Rodgers understood the danger. He knew that when an underprepared and under-resourced attacking side comes up against an opponent whose strength lies in frustrating it, denying space and grinding out a result, the tie becomes much more dangerous than it appears on paper. A trip to Kazakhstan for the second leg was the last thing Celtic needed, and from the moment the draw was made I was deeply uncomfortable about it.

I repeatedly warned people not to become complacent or simply assume that Celtic would have enough. The board did precisely that, and the club paid for it.

We should not repeat the same mistake now.

Even without knowing everything about LASK, their pedigree is clear. They are capable, they have just won their domestic championship and they will approach this tie believing Celtic can be beaten. They have every reason to believe it because this club has failed to prepare properly and has not strengthened several of the areas which obviously required attention.

Should Celtic enter the tie without Engels and Johnston, and without suitable replacements, we will be weaker than the side which finished last season. That would leave us facing another potentially humiliating exit from the Champions League.

Celtic were probably among the teams every unseeded club wanted in this draw. We have a long and unflattering history of embarrassing ourselves during Champions League qualification, and although Martin O’Neill may be capable of working miracles, he is doing the job with one hand tied behind his back.

Every one of us knows it, and none of us should be complacent.

Austria is at least a more straightforward trip than Kazakhstan. That is about the most positive thing I can say about the draw right now. The first leg is at Celtic Park on 18 or 19 August, with the return taking place at LASK’s ground on 25 or 26 August.

The home leg coming first could prove particularly awkward. Should LASK come to Celtic Park, remain compact and leave Glasgow with the tie level or still within reach, the momentum and pressure will shift towards them before the return in Austria.

I am not claiming they will reproduce Kairat’s exact game plan because I have not watched enough of them to say that. But every visiting side in this position knows what Celtic struggles against. The longer a game at Parkhead remains scoreless, the louder the anxiety becomes, the more impatient the players become and the more belief grows in the opposition.

Anyone who is not concerned about that is not taking our current condition seriously.

There is a great deal of money on the table. More than that, there is prestige and reputation, both of which Celtic have already damaged often enough in this stage of European competition.

But for a moment, let us focus on the money we left behind last year. Does anyone genuinely believe Celtic would have failed to reach the Champions League group phase had the club properly replaced Nicolas Kühn and Kyogo Furuhashi? Does anyone believe that even a little more attacking quality would not have carried us past Kairat?

Rodgers knew the danger and knew exactly what Celtic required to maximise its chances. The board did not provide it.

Martin O’Neill now knows what his team needs to get through this tie and into the league phase. He knows what the squad needs to get past almost anyone Celtic might have drawn.

Yet the work still has not been done.

It is almost as though this club has stumbled into a week it did not expect and could never have anticipated, but the play-off draw date has been known for months. The first-leg dates have been known. The registration requirements have been known. None of this has appeared out of nowhere.

Alistair Johnston’s performances at the World Cup were always likely to attract attention. Engels has appeared to have one foot out of the door since January. These were not impossible developments which nobody could have planned for.

Yet here we are, apparently on the brink of losing both players, with our Champions League opponents now confirmed and every weakness in the squad laid bare.

This is the point at which Celtic must enter the market, when every selling club understands our need, knows how much money we may receive and can read the calendar as easily as we can. Every potential seller knows that Celtic now has only a short period in which to complete vital business before facing the Austrian champions.

And now we are supposed to believe these people will suddenly get everything done?

This board deserves to see its strategy fail. The people running Celtic deserve the consequences of their negligence, dithering and arrogance. The problem, of course, is that the club and its supporters will suffer those consequences with them.

LASK are not unbeatable. Celtic should be capable of defeating them across two legs. But that is not the same thing as saying the current side will definitely do it, particularly should two mission-critical players leave without proper replacements arriving.

The club has done nothing like enough to prepare for this moment. Whatever these executives have spent the last several months doing, it has not been the job in front of them.

We are facing a genuine risk of another Champions League qualification failure. It is as simple as that.

The first leg is approaching, key players may be leaving and the squad remains unbalanced and incomplete. Right now, I would not bet on Celtic qualifying with a bag full of cash that I’d found by the side of the road.

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