Celtic's Reo Hatate Faces Crucial Decision Ahead of Champions League Play-Off

Martin O'Neill does not expect Celtic to add any late faces before their Champions League play-off with LASK – and says he would be more than content if Reo Hatate chooses to stay and fight for his place.

The first leg arrives at Celtic Park on Wednesday, with the transfer deadline for registering players in the tie falling late on Tuesday night. Asked if anyone else might come through the door in time, O'Neill cut through the speculation.

There is, he said, a “fairly decent chance of nothing happening”.

Celtic have already been busy. Summer recruits Camilo Duran and Kasper Hogh have made sharp, eye-catching starts, while Mika Baur and Haissem Hassan have recently joined the squad. But the weekend sale of Arne Engels to West Ham has left a clear gap in midfield at a delicate moment in the club’s European campaign.

O'Neill was blunt about what has gone out the door. Engels’ departure, he admitted, strips Celtic of serious running power in the middle of the pitch – precisely the kind of energy that would have been useful against the Austrians.

“It would have been nice to have kept Arne for the couple of games, because he knows the players, knows his role in the team,” O’Neill said. “But it's not to be. We'll have someone else in there.”

That “someone else” is likely to be Baur. The German midfielder made his debut as a 59th-minute substitute in Sunday’s 4-0 win at Dundee United and did enough to push himself into the frame. With Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain suspended and Hatate yet to play a minute this season, the door has opened for the new arrival.

O’Neill hinted Baur could be thrown straight into the starting XI, even as he tempered expectations by stressing that the 21-year-old is still learning his surroundings and his team-mates.

Hatate, though, remains the most intriguing name in the conversation.

The Japan international, a serial winner in Glasgow with five league titles, three Scottish Cups and two League Cups, has been reduced to watching from the bench so far this term. He has not started a game since a 2-0 defeat at Dundee United in April. For a player once talked about as one of the best midfielders in the country, that is a stark shift.

O’Neill did not hide that the last spell has been difficult for the 28-year-old, who joined in 2022 and still has two years left on his contract.

“It's been a bit of a struggle for him [of late],” the Celtic manager admitted, before adding a clear challenge. “What I would love Reo to do is get back to the form he showed a couple of years ago when he was one of the best players in Scotland.”

There have been transfer enquiries for Hatate. Nothing concrete yet, nothing that has forced a decision. That could still change before the window closes, but O’Neill made his stance plain: he is not pushing the midfielder towards the exit.

“If Reo wants to stay and battle for his place in the team and says he's capable of doing it, I have no problem with that.”

So Celtic head into a pivotal European night with their squad largely set, their manager prepared to trust what he has, and one gifted midfielder standing at a crossroads: rediscover his old dominance in Glasgow, or seek a fresh start elsewhere.