O’Neill hopes Celtic star will stay at the club | OneFootball

Celtic manager Martin O’Neill says he hopes Reo Hatate will stay at Celtic and become “one of the best players in Scotland” again.

The Glasgow giants host Austrian champions LASK in the first leg of their play-off – a clash that will see O’Neill return to Champions League management for the first time since December 2004. 

The Celtic boss spoke of the club’s proud European heritage as winners of the 1967 European Cup Final, when Jock Stein’s Lisbon Lions defeated Inter Milan to become the first British team to raise the trophy. 

“I’ve said all along that I think the bar was set down here way back in 1967. From then on, I believe that Celtic should be aspiring to that,” O’Neill said. 

“We may never ever get there, and obviously with the way that the financial market has moved in football, it’s getting more and more difficult for maybe a team from Scotland. But you should still be aspiring to it, and that’s what we want to try and do.” 

Despite the financial challenges, Celtic have shown intent to match O’Neill’s ambition with some statement signings this summer. Danish striker Kasper Høgh, who will be best remembered for his goalscoring heroics against Manchester City, Atlético Madrid and Inter Milan last season, has joined from Bodø/Glimt for a club record fee of £11 million plus add-ons. 

The Hoops have also secured Egyptian World Cup star Haissem Hassan, Colombia winger Camilo Durán, and German midfielder Mika Baur. 

Although Celtic are now much better equipped to compete in the play-off round, O’Neill expressed some regret about the timing of midfielder Arne Engels’ departure, who has joined West Ham for an EFL record £22 million fee. 

“I think that Arne wanted to go. He didn’t want to play in the matches in case he got injured,” he said.

“That’s understandable as this is a move he wanted to make. But for the football club it’s disappointing really because at this moment he’s hard to replace in the side with the running power that he has, so even for these two games it’s disappointing.

“It would have been nice to have kept him for the couple of games, because he knows the players and he knows his role in the team.”

The club is also burdened by uncertainty surrounding Reo Hatate’s future, with reports indicating the Japanese midfielder is still trying to engineer a move to one of Europe’s top five leagues. 

But O’Neill has not shut the door on the possibility of reintegrating Hatate. 

“What I would love Reo to do is get back to the form that he showed a couple of years ago when he was one of the best players in Scotland,” he said. 

“It has been a bit of a struggle for him. He’s not a regular member of the team at the moment, but those things can change. There have been enquiries for him but I don’t think there has been anything definitive, but that may well happen in the next week. 

“If Reo wanted to stay on and really battle for his place here in the team and say he’s capable of doing it, I have not a problem with that.”