Despite a few summer hiccups, legendary manager and serial winner Martin O’Neill is now beginning to motor through his final spell at Parkhead and the 74 year old Northern Irishman will be determined to make his mark once again at Celtic, having basically saved our blushes twice last season.
Our Scottish Premiership, and title defence campaign, has begun as many had anticipated with six goals scored and one conceded in wins over Dundee and Kilmarnock. A 4-0 hammering of Dundee United in the League Cup second round progresses us in that competition, but the Champions League Play Off against LASK was a huge black mark and few who use the new betting sites in Ireland would have seen this coming with the available odds.
We went into the second leg with a clear 3-0 advantage, and we just absolutely failed to turn up and got embarrassingly dumped out in a 5-1 loss.
We know O’Neill will be demanding better and ensuring that there is a reaction in Saturday’s clash with Falkirk at Celtic Park, and the the loyal Hoops faithful will be expecting no less following that shambles. To be fair, O’Neill should also be asking a couple of questions of himself after that one. Dropping out of the Champions League and back into the Europa League may now also impact on what ever our remaining plans were for the summer transfer window before we hit September’s Deadline Day.
Post game O’Neill basically admitted as much, and fans already think we are light on options given the business we have completed.
Although goalkeeper Viljami Sinisalo would rightly argue the defence basically abandoned him in the game, our plans to add another goalkeeper – even if back up for greater competition – will have been bolstered by this result. Speculation on the rumour mill originally had us linked with an interest in Blackburn Rovers’ Balasz Toth, but with a reported price tag of £6 million, we are now apparently looking elsewhere.
This brings us to a path we have gone down before, with Wolverhampton Wanderers stopper Sam Johnstone.
The 33 year old goalkeeper is a Manchester United Academy graduate, and although his best success came with Aston Villa as they won promotion back to the Premier League via the Championship Play Off trophy, he is best known for a six year spell at West Bromwich Albion – he has also been capped four times by England throughout his career. With 17 appearances for Wolves last season, the solid Premier League experience he now boasts would be available for basically a far lower fee than the £10 million he moved for two years ago.
The snag is he has not featured in a meaningful game since last September following a shoulder injury that put him on the sidelines for the vast majority of the second half of the campaign.
Having reinvigorated the careers of Joe Hart, Kasper Schmeichel and Fraser Forster in recent years, a move for Johnstone would be very in keeping with how we have approached the goalkeeping department in recent years.
It is certainly one to possibly watch over the weekend.
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