Martin O’Neill buoyed by Celtic’s goalscoring threat ahead of LASK double-header

Celtic's Benjamin Nygren greets manager Martin O'Neill as he is substituted off. Pic: Steve Welsh/PA Wire.

Manager Martin O’Neill is encouraged by Celtic’s goalscoring form ahead of two of the biggest games of their season.

The Hoops were ruthless in a 4-0 Premier Sports Cup win over Dundee United, which followed a 5-1 victory over Kilmarnock.

Celtic failed to reach the Champions League last year after drawing a blank over 210 minutes against Kairat Almaty after a frustrating summer transfer window which sparked a breakdown in relations between the board and then manager Brendan Rodgers.

This year Celtic go into he Champions League play-offs with two new strikers. Camilo Duran was on target at Tannadice after the other, Kasper Hogh, netted a hat-trick at Rugby Park.

Auston Trusty headed home from a corner and Sebastien Tounekti scored on the break, while Benjamin Nygren continued his excellent start to the season by taking his tally to three goals and three assists in three matches.

“It does give you encouragement,” O’Neill said. “The centre-forward (Hogh), he’s linked up well. He obviously wants to get into the penalty area, but he’s a very fine centre-forward. He’ll thrive on goals like any centre-forward.

“But overall that’s something that I felt we missed last season. He’s strong, and his hold-up play, he wants to improve that and I think he’s doing fine.

“I think we’ve got goalscorers in the side. That was always a concern last season. We conjured goals, and we won big games. But Daizen (Maeda), almost single-handedly took it upon himself to score the goals. Now I think that there are goals from different areas.” 

Celtic host LASK on Wednesday in the first of a double-header against the Austrian champions.

“There is a really big task ahead,” O’Neill said. “They’re a very fine side. They’re very, very strong.

“And ideally it would be great if some of the lads who have come in now had a bit more practice with the team in that sense. But it is what it is. We have to be ready regardless.” 

While Duran and Hogh have hit the ground running, Celtic’s only other two summer arrivals were given a first brief introduction at Tannadice.

German midfielder Mika Baur was first to get on after his move from Paderborn and could feature heavily against LASK following Arne Engels’ move to West Ham and news of a European suspension for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who started at Tannadice.

However, Celtic fans will have to wait longer to see Egypt winger Haissem Hassan get fully up to speed following his move from Real Oviedo.

O’Neill said: “You can never plan these things but the idea was at some stage or another that Hassan, maybe in the last 20 minutes, (would get on). He has done very little training since the World Cup.

“At least Mika has trained and played pre-season, so he’s more up to speed with things.

“Of course there’s always the concern that somebody just stepping in, straight in, might suffer an injury of some description, a muscle injury or something like that. That’s what we have to be careful of. But at least he got on the field.”