Celtic and Rangers Transfer Window Insights: O’Neill and McInnes Reflect

Martin O’Neill walked out of the transfer window with what he wanted. Derek McInnes walked out with what he needed.

In Glasgow, that difference might define a season.

O’Neill content as Celtic scramble late

Six of Celtic’s 10 summer signings arrived in a frantic final 48 hours, a late rush that underlined how incomplete the champions’ squad had looked after their Champions League exit.

By Wednesday night’s UEFA registration deadline, the paperwork was done. Dutch midfielder Joel van den Berg came in from PSV Eindhoven, Swiss right-back Jordan Lotomba arrived from Feyenoord, and the Hoops had already tied up loan deals for Wolves goalkeeper Sam Johnstone, Parma midfielder Oliver Sorensen and Chelsea teenagers Shim Mheuka and Landon Emenalo.

Not all of them could be registered for Europe. The Chelsea pair and Van den Berg missed out, squeezed out by the limits of the Europa League squad list.

O’Neill, though, refused to grumble.

“I’m delighted to get players. Genuinely pleased,” 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 had been chasing obvious reinforcements for weeks. A back-up to the injured Kieran Tierney sat near the top of the list, especially after the Champions League exit exposed the lack of depth on the left. While Premiership rivals had done most of their business earlier, the champions kept pushing deep into the final week.

So, could they have moved sooner? O’Neill bristled at the suggestion.

“How many times are you going to ask me that each week?” he snapped. “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.”

The Celtic manager also brushed aside any disappointment over missing Torino midfielder Gvidas Gineitis.

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

There is, however, a clear short-term feel to much of Celtic’s work. Alongside the four loan signings, Lotomba has only committed until the end of the season. O’Neill knows what that can mean in a dressing room.

“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, with Tierney and Kasper Hogh again missing for Saturday’s meeting with St Mirren.

“But I’ve also had loans of players who have loved the football club. For instance, 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.”

The message is clear. The window is over. The squad is what it is. O’Neill wants the noise to stop and the football to start.

McInnes rebuilds Rangers’ room, not just their squad

Across the city, Derek McInnes greeted the end of the window with something closer to exhaustion than relief.

“It feels like I’ve been to war this window, to be honest,” the Rangers manager said. “It feels like the longest window I’ve ever known.”

Fourteen new faces have come through the door at Ibrox. The last two arrived late, but with purpose.

Portland Timbers striker Kevin Kelsy, 22, signed a four-year deal with an option of a fifth in a move reported to be worth around £9.5m. Algeria winger Badredine Bouanani joined on a season-long loan from Stuttgart. Both go straight into the squad for Saturday’s Premiership clash with Motherwell.

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

For him, this window was never just about bodies. It was about attitude.

“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.”

McInnes has felt a change in the last fortnight.

“I need to say the dressing room, particularly over the last couple of weeks, has been so strong and so together,” he said. “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 matters at Rangers, where pressure rarely dips and “stinging results”, as he called them, never sit quietly in the background.

“That’s important when you come through adversity and stinging results. Equally, we’ve bounced back really well in two tough away games (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.”

There is another theme running through this Rangers squad: age. Or lack of it.

“We are a very young dressing room,” McInnes said. “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.”

There was at least one piece of good news on the fitness front. Left-back Tuur Rommens, out with a groin strain, will return to full training between the two upcoming games against Celtic.

The window is shut now. Celtic lean on late deals and short-term contracts, trusting O’Neill’s experience to knit it all together. Rangers lean on youth, commitment and a dressing room McInnes finally recognises as his own.

The next Old Firm meetings will reveal whose rebuild has real substance – and whose was just noise at the end of a long, draining summer.