£19m Celtic Bench Exposed as Sky Sports Says Every Change Made Them Weaker
A look at every Celtic substitute available against LASK exposes a bench full of prospects, backups and millions of pounds that still could not maintain the level of the starting XI.
Phillip Cooney 
The Celtic Champions League bench should tell the board everything they need to know about what went wrong against LASK.
Martin O’Neill had 12 substitutes available in Austria.
Look through them individually and one question becomes impossible to avoid.
Was this really a bench built to take Celtic into the Champions League?
No disrespect is intended towards the players themselves. Several have served Celtic well, while others still deserve time.
The issue is squad construction.
When Celtic’s starting XI began to tire and LASK took control, O’Neill needed replacements capable of maintaining the level.
Instead, Celtic became weaker.
That is an astonishing position for Celtic to find themselves in during a Champions League play-off.
Celtic’s £19m bench raises serious questions
Start with the most expensive options.
Haissem Hassan cost an initial £6million, potentially rising to £9million.
Nobody should be writing Hassan off. We have barely seen him.
That actually strengthens the criticism of Celtic’s planning.
The club signed one of its major summer recruits so late in the process that O’Neill admitted Hassan had done very little training following the World Cup.
Celtic got the player through the door before LASK, but apparently not early enough to have him properly prepared for the biggest fixtures of the summer.
Michel-Ange Balikwisha arrived in a deal worth up to £5million.
A year later, he still has not established himself as someone Celtic can depend upon when the stakes are highest.
O’Neill did not even use him as Celtic desperately searched for an answer in Austria.
Sebastian Tounekti cost £5.2million.
Again, the criticism is not personal.
However, Celtic should expect a £5.2million signing to increase competition in the first team.
If replacing one of your starters noticeably reduces the team’s level, recruitment has not strengthened the squad enough.
Then the fees fall dramatically.
Reo Hatate cost around £1.4million and has been outstanding value over his Celtic career.
Luke McCowan arrived for approximately £1million.
Liam Scales cost around £500,000.
Johnny Kenny was another inexpensive signing from Sligo Rovers.
Callum Osmand arrived from Fulham for an undisclosed development-related fee.
Ross Doohan returned on a free transfer.
Dane Murray, Anthony Ralston and James Forrest all came through Celtic’s academy.
Add the known and widely reported initial fees together and there was roughly £19million of transfer investment on that bench, before Osmand’s undisclosed figure is considered.
Yet most of that money is concentrated in three attacking players.
That is the problem.
This is not Champions League squad depth
There is nothing wrong with academy players.
There is nothing wrong with inexpensive signings either. Hatate himself proves that transfer fees do not determine quality.
Every successful club also needs squad players.
But Celtic cannot fill a Champions League bench with prospects, inexpensive backups and expensive signings who are either not ready or have not established themselves.
The manager needs alternatives who can come on without substantially weakening the side.
Against LASK, that simply was not the case.
Sky Sports went even further.
Its analysis said Celtic still had “gaping holes” in the squad before concluding that the club was not fully prepared for the tie.
They highlighted Celtic finishing the game with Murray, Scales, Ralston and McCowan on the pitch as evidence of how threadbare the squad had become.
That is not hindsight from an angry supporter.
It is an independent assessment of Celtic’s squad after their biggest game of the season.
O’Neill’s admission says everything
Perhaps the most damning comment came from Celtic’s own manager.
After the defeat, O’Neill admitted:
“We know that we are a million miles from the finished article.”
Think about that statement.
Celtic were a million miles from the finished article AFTER the Champions League qualifier had already been played.
When exactly was this squad supposed to be finished?
September?
October?
The Champions League does not wait for Celtic’s recruitment department.
Everyone at the club knew when these qualifiers would be played.
Celtic knew Kieran Tierney needed genuine cover.
They knew Alistair Johnston was injured.
Arne Engels departed without a replacement being ready for LASK.
Hassan was signed but was not sufficiently prepared.
Balikwisha had still not established himself.
Tounekti had not proved capable of raising the level.
Then O’Neill looked towards his bench while a four-goal aggregate advantage disappeared.
What did he find?
Not enough.
Celtic had spent money. That cannot be denied.
However, spending money and building a Champions League squad are two completely different things.
A proper European squad gives the manager options.
It allows him to replace tired players with footballers of similar quality.
Celtic’s substitutes against LASK repeatedly reduced the quality on the pitch.
That should never happen at a club with Celtic’s resources and ambitions.
The board knew the date.
They knew the weaknesses.
They knew what qualification was worth.
Yet Celtic still entered the defining tie of their summer with what Sky Sports described as a threadbare squad.
That is not Champions League preparation.
It is another gamble that spectacularly failed.
They should also have been aware of the Ox suspension.
All the rightful criticism of the board will have no effect on them. They are a bunch of shambolic incompetents.
They haven’t a clue about football.
They will never change.