Although there was success come May, Celtic endured problems on and off the field last season.<\/p>\n
O’Neill was brought out of retirement following the acrimonious departure of Rodgers and then was recalled for a second stint in interim charge after Wilfried Nancy’s short-term spell as manager.<\/p>\n
The club’s supporters protested at length over a perceived lack of spending and the failure to reach the Champions League after defeat to Kazakh side Kairat Almaty.<\/p>\n
That disgruntlement has carried over into this summer after chief executive Michael Nicholson said the transfer market was proving “difficult”<\/a> because Celtic are competing with English Championship clubs for players and dealing with agents.<\/p>\n “There were obviously a few circumstances that made it more challenging than perhaps it has been in the past few seasons,” McGregor said when asked about last season. <\/p>\n “You have to make sure when you face those challenges, you can overcome them. The group of boys and the staff that pulled the team through a really difficult season – that’s what you need to build. <\/p>\n “Good characters, people that are willing to go to the death for each other. <\/p>\n “This season hopefully we can do it in a bit more style, the way that we’re used to. <\/p>\n “Work’s been going on through pre-season to make sure that happens.”<\/p>\n As McGregor hinted, it will be a new-look Celtic squad that takes to the field in the coming weeks and months. <\/p>\n Influential Japan forward Daizen Maeda has left to join Premier League Ipswich Town<\/a>, while striker Kelechi Iheanacho turned down a new contract<\/a> at Celtic and instead signed with Turkish outfit Bursaspor. <\/p>\n Goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel has retired, while loanees Marcelo Saracchi, Julian Araujo, Tomas Cvancara and Benjamin Arthur have all returned to their parent clubs.<\/p>\n However, Camilo Duran and club-record signing Kasper Hogh – both of whom have Champions League pedigree – have been brought in to bolster O’Neill’s forward line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although there was success come May, Celtic endured problems on and off the field last season. O’Neill was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":831389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-831388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}