Celtic's Late Transfer Rush and Rangers' Rebuild

Martin O’Neill walked out of the transfer window sounding like a manager who has had enough of talking about it and finally wants to coach a team again.

Celtic’s business arrived late and in bulk. Six of their 10 summer signings came in the final 48 hours, a scramble framed by Champions League disappointment and glaring gaps in the squad. Yet O’Neill, 74, cut a content figure.

“I’m delighted to get players. Genuinely pleased,” he said, before pointing to the one hard limit he could not bend – UEFA’s squad list.

Celtic’s late rush and UEFA squeeze

The headline arrivals came just before the UEFA registration deadline on Wednesday night. Dutch midfielder Joel van den Berg arrived from PSV Eindhoven, with Swiss right-back Jordan Lotomba joining from Feyenoord. Both are short-term solutions, both carry expectation.

They followed a flurry of loan deals: Wolves goalkeeper Sam Johnstone, Parma midfielder Oliver Sorensen and Chelsea’s 18-year-old duo Shim Mheuka and Landon Emenalo. It is a sizeable injection of fresh faces for a side that looked thin in key areas after exiting the Champions League and losing Kieran Tierney to injury.

Yet not all of them will taste Europe. The Chelsea pair and Van den Berg were left out of Celtic’s Europa League squad because of limited spaces. Harsh realities, as O’Neill knows too well.

“The difficulty is that you only have to look at the UEFA list,” he said. “Some young lads will be disappointed not being able to make that particular UEFA squad. So there’s only so many places that we could fill.

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

Celtic’s rivals had largely finished their work earlier in the window. The champions were still searching for cover at left-back and depth across the pitch deep into the final week. The timing questions have followed O’Neill all summer.

“How many times are you going to ask me that each week?” he snapped, though with a smile behind the words. “We started this in July time. So I’m pleased with the players that we’ve got in.

“We’ve got them in and I genuinely want to get on with it now. So, ideally, it would be great to have got players in earlier to get them bedded in. It doesn’t matter. Happy, really happy to have the players that we have.”

One that got away was Torino midfielder Gvidas Gineitis. O’Neill refused to indulge any sense of regret.

“No, I’m really pleased with what we have now at this minute. So, honestly, not a problem.”

Loans, loyalty and a manager’s doubt

The shape of Celtic’s rebuild tells its own story. Four loanees, plus Lotomba on a deal only until the end of the season. It is a modern solution, but not one O’Neill embraces without reservation.

“I sometimes concern myself about loan players coming in and maybe not seeing the club that they’re going to as the club that they really want to play for,” he admitted.

He has seen the other side too. Julian Araujo’s spell last season left a mark.

“Julian Araujo took the club to heart last season and that was great. Honestly, he would have done anything for the club. So, from that viewpoint, you’re never sure.

“Loans are sometimes a bit of a concern, but it depends on the player.”

Celtic go into the weekend still without Tierney and Kasper Hogh for the visit of St Mirren, but with a squad that, on paper, looks deeper and more balanced. O’Neill, though, has parked the market talk. His message is simple now: no more excuses.

Across the city, Derek McInnes sounded like a man who had just staggered out of the same storm.

McInnes: “It feels like I’ve been to war”

Rangers have gone for volume. Fourteen new recruits at Ibrox, two of them on deadline day. McInnes called it “the longest window I’ve ever known” and did not bother to dress it up.

“We all took a huge sigh of relief when the window closed yesterday and we get on with the job in hand,” he said.

“It feels like I’ve been to war this window, to be honest. It feels like the longest window I’ve ever known. There’s always so much to consider.”

The final pieces were significant. Portland Timbers’ 22-year-old Venezuelan striker Kevin Kelsy signed on an initial four-year deal, with an option for a further year, in a move reportedly worth around £9.5m. Algeria winger Badredine Bouanani arrived on a season-long loan from Stuttgart. Both go straight into the squad for Saturday’s Scottish Premiership meeting with Motherwell.

Left-back Tuur Rommens, meanwhile, is closing in on a return. McInnes revealed he will resume full training between the two upcoming games against Celtic after recovering from a groin strain. The squad he has built is younger, hungrier, and, crucially in his eyes, more rooted in the club.

Building a dressing room that “actually feels like football”

For McInnes, this window was about more than names on a team sheet. It was about changing the mood behind the dressing-room door.

“At Rangers, I don’t want to work with players who just see what’s next and what’s next after this, always maybe eagerly eyeing up other opportunities,” he said.

“I want people who want to be here, who want to hang about the club for a period of time and want to be successful here.

This club can provide so much opportunity and so many good moments for a player, manager and the like.

I just want us to commit to being here and put all our focus on the club. The club is deserving of that. The players are deserving of each other, to get that tightness and closeness.”

Then came the line that tells you how fractured it has felt at times.

“I need to say the dressing room, particularly over the last couple of weeks, has been so strong and so together.

“It actually feels like a football dressing room. The humour, the togetherness and how we work has felt far more like what I would expect my dressing rooms to look like and behave like.”

That togetherness has already been tested. Rangers took “stinging results” on the chin, in McInnes’ words, before responding with two gritty away wins at Falkirk and Aberdeen.

“That spirit and togetherness helps you get through difficult times, and you need that at any club, but particularly here.”

Youth, standards and no “lazy days”

The new Rangers squad is strikingly young. McInnes sees both risk and reward.

“We are a very young dressing room. That is exciting and there is a lot of potential, but there are also lots of learnings for these young boys.

“It’s our job to help them fulfil that potential in a Rangers shirt, day in and day out.

“I just want the players not to waste their minutes or opportunities.

“Whether they’re picked or training, don’t see any day as a lazy day. We’re not going to accept bad practice here.

“Every day has to be important. You train with motivation, professionally, and as if you’re trying to get into the team on a Saturday.”

So the window slams shut on Glasgow with two very different squads, but two managers striking a similar note: enough talk, time to prove it.

O’Neill has his late arrivals and his UEFA compromises. McInnes has his rebuilt, youthful dressing room that, in his words, finally feels like a proper football environment.

Now comes the only verdict that matters – what all this business looks like when the whistle blows and the season’s pressure really starts to bite.