Celtic manager Martin O’Neill has played down the significance of two players training with the club, saying he was not aware of either of them being at Lennoxtown.
The first is Perth RedStar goalkeeper Sonny Inzalaco, a 19-year-old Australia youth international. O’Neill admitted he did not know the teenager had been training with the Scottish champions. Inzalaco’s profile appears to be rising, with Wrexham reported to be interested in him, and the goalkeeper is also said to have had a trial with Blackburn Rovers during the summer.
O’Neill was equally unaware of Tiemoue Bakayoko, the 32-year-old former France midfielder who has been without a club since leaving PAOK in July 2025. The manager insisted he did not know Bakayoko had been training with Celtic, and added that the club will not be making any signings before January.
Away from Lennoxtown, the agent for Algeria winger Fares Ghedjemis has revealed that both Celtic and Rangers made moves for the 24-year-old during the summer transfer window. Ghedjemis has since signed a contract extension with Frosinone.
O’Neill is also facing scrutiny over his own position, with a three-game run framed as a test of his future. Celtic will come up against Alfred Johansson’s Motherwell, Wouter Vrancken’s Heart of Midlothian and Marink Reedijk’s Hibernian. The age comparisons are striking: Johansson and Reedijk’s ages combined still fall short of O’Neill’s 74 years, while Vrancken is three decades his junior. One report claims O’Neill cannot afford to threaten to resign as Celtic manager for a second time and survive.
On the playing side, Kieran Tierney has said he is feeling good and ready to play for Celtic after injury forced the left-back to withdraw from Scotland duty.
The Scottish Professional Football League, meanwhile, hopes to bring away supporters back to matches between Celtic and Rangers. Chief executive Neil Doncaster said the SPFL wants to reintroduce away fans to the fixture “as soon as possible”.
Former defender Lex Baillie, now 60, has also revealed that some of his father’s Rangers-supporting friends stopped speaking to him after he signed for Celtic. His father, Doug, had played for the Ibrox club.