Celtic Star Been Waiting For A Spark Believes Defender | OneFootball

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Motherwell defender Stephen O’Donnell believes Celtic attacker Sebastian Tounetki has been waiting for a spark to get him going.

Celtic paid a hefty fee of £5.5m to Hammarby to sign the 24-year-old left winger on the deadline day of the 2025 summer transfer window.

Hammarby sporting director Mikael Hjelmberg stated that Tounetki’s desire to play for the Scottish champions was taken into account to facilitate the move, but he failed to establish himself as regular in his debut season at Parkhead.

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This season so far, Tounekti has mainly featured from off the bench and he made his first start of the Scottish Premiership in the ongoing campaign against St Johnstone on Wednesday.

The Tunisian international featured for 73 minutes in the game and also played a key part in a 66th-minute goal, which was ultimately disallowed and the Bhoys came out with a 1-0 scoreline.

Motherwell right-back O’Donnell admits that he witnessed Tounekti’s quality when he came up against him a few times last season and believes that the Celtic forward has a nice right foot.

He thinks that Tounekti needs a spark which will be able to light up his Celtic career and hopes that his performance against St. Johnstone could provide him with that.

“I have played against him a few times directly and then at centre-back as well and you can see he has got quality”, O’Donnell said on the Go Radio Football Show (11:50).

“He has kind of a nice right foot.

“You just kind of feel as if something maybe simmering, is just something waiting for a spark and hopefully for him that will come off the back of the good performance.

“Last night [against St Johnstone he was] involved in the goal as well that was not given.”

Former Bhoys star John Collins pointed out last season that Celtic miss the 24-year-old on the pitch whenever he is absent and the player in the past also stated that despite being a left sided player, he can play on the right side to help the team as well.

Now Celtic will travel to Ibrox to face the city rivals Rangers at the weekend and all eyes will be on Martin O’Neill to see whether the veteran tactician will give the Tunisian a start on Sunday.