Martin O’Neill declares himself 'really pleased' with Celtic’s transfer window despite Deadline Day near miss

Martin O’Neill has declared himself “really pleased” with Celtic’s summer transfer business - despite the club failing to complete a Deadline Day deal for Torino midfielder Gvidas Gineitis.

The Hoops endured a frantic end to the transfer window, bringing in five new players on Wednesday night as they completed a remarkable late burst of recruitment.

Gineitis had emerged as one of the Scottish champions key midfield targets in recent weeks, but a move for the Lithuania international ultimately failed to materialise. But despite missing out on the Serie A star, O’Neill insists he has no regrets over how the window played out.

Asked whether he was frustrated that Celtic could not manage to get a deal over the line for Gineitis, the Irishman delivered an emphatic response. “No, no. I’m really pleased with what we have now at this minute. So, honestly, not a problem,” O’Neill said. “We’ve got some players in, so I’m really, really pleased. Genuinely pleased.”

O’Neill also admitted that Celtic had to be mindful of the restrictions surrounding their UEFA squad when deciding how many new additions to make.

The 74-year-old pointed out that the number of available places meant the club could not simply continue adding players indefinitely, with some of the Hoops’ young prospects now facing disappointment over their omission from the European squad.

“The difficulty, when you think about it, is that you only have to look at the UEFA list about the places that we would have had available for players,” he explained. “And some young lads here will be disappointed not being able to make that particular UEFA squad. “There’s only so many places that we could fill.”

O’Neill leaves three summer signings out of Euro squad

O’Neill left three of Celtic’s summer signings out of the European squad, highlighting the difficult selection decisions created by UEFA’s squad limits.

“Yeah, very much so,” O’Neill responded when asked how difficult it was to leave out three of his summer signings - Joel van den Berg, Landon Emenalo and Shim Mheuka - from the club’s European squad. “In an ideal world, I would have had them all on board and give people and extra incentive.

“But our bread and butter is the league. And players, young players coming to the football club now, either on loan or permanently, let’s go and prove yourself at league level here. And if we were fortunate enough to stay in the Europa League until after January time, we may not do, but if we are, then these next three or four months will prove whether they will join that list in January time, if we are still there.

“So, yeah, it was difficult. I would have loved to have had them all in, but I had to learn from last season that I didn’t know the rules.”

The focus for O’Neill now turns to getting the best out of his new-look squad and keeping his key players available as Celtic prepare for a demanding fixture schedule. The Irishman acknowledged that injuries could quickly test the depth of his group, but believes Celtic are in a strong position provided they can avoid a significant number of absences.

“If we can avoid serious injury to the players here, people not being out for endless lengths of time, then yeah, I’m happy with it,” O’Neill added.

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