Hartley<\/a> can barely believe the state of affairs and said: \u201cIt\u2019s astounding with the size of the club and what they\u2019ve done over the last number of years that they are still searching [for players].<\/p>\n\u201cAnd I think getting an attacker in at this stage is going to be very difficult, who are they going to get?<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody knows that they are looking at strikers, but not one striker, I think they need more than one and that\u2019s probably been the case for more than a year now.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see the frustration with Martin [O’Neill]. Every presser he\u2019s getting asked about recruitment and they\u2019ve been pretty slow in getting people in, but I think that\u2019s been the case for a wee while now.<\/p>\n
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Celtic manager Martin O’Neill(Image: )<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s getting pretty close to the window shutting. Hearts and Rangers have acted pretty quickly in terms of getting their business done.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s just been the case with Celtic that they\u2019ve always been very, very slow. You saw the last window they brought the guy in, [Kelechi] Iheanacho, the day later or the last kick. It tells you where they\u2019re at.”<\/p>\n
Celtic are hunting a striker head of Sunday’s crunch against Hearts, but Hartley reasoned: \u201cHow do you put somebody into that type of game? The centre forward area has been a problem for them for a long time now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve not really replaced Kyogo who left a year ago and they seem to be dashing about at the last minute to try to bring players in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to get a top end striker in within 12 days. Good strikers are not available, it\u2019s people who are not playing or out of favour. And are they going to cost a lot of money? Celtic are stuck. It wouldn\u2019t surprise me if they brought one striker in, someone on loan, at the last minute.<\/p>\n
\u201cCeltic have not been playing well for a while. The squad\u2019s obviously pretty weak in terms of the personnel.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see the frustrations with the supporters also. The atmosphere at Celtic is not quite the same, not what it used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was put to Hartley that Celtic are in danger of losing their grip as champions and he continued: \u201cThe one thing I would say is that they\u2019ve got the experience of the manager, Martin.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut they\u2019re not playing well. So that\u2019s the big thing, recruitment. They need to get players in before the end of the window. There\u2019s no doubt about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I\u2019m not just meaning one striker or two, I still think they\u2019re short in other certain areas. Hearts on the other hand are a difficult kettle of fish.<\/p>\n
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Paul Hartley(Image: Jeff Holmes JSHPIX)<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Hearts are looking strong. You can see their home form, they\u2019ve not been beaten in the league this season. For me, at this moment Hearts are in the driving seat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Celtic are scoring the globe with an eye also on the domestic market. Cove boss Hartley joined Celtic from Hearts and players such as Hibs\u2019 Kieron Bowie.<\/p>\n
Hartley said: \u201cBowie is definitely a player who has impressed me over a period of time. I\u2019m sure the Hibs fans won\u2019t want to hear that. He should be a player that Celtic are looking at. But I also think there are a number of good Scottish players playing in the Premier League.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dundee\u2019s Luke Graham is another earning rave reviews and Hartley added: \u201cHe\u2019s a very good young player. Centre-half, aggressive. I think he\u2019s been linked with Aberdeen. I think sometimes you need players who know the league also.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to get somebody to fit in straightaway, fit into the team, fit into Scottish football.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul Hartley and Barrie McKay was appearing on The Warm-Up, the William Hill SPFL\u2019s weekly preview show. Check out the full episode here: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@WilliamHillSPFL<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Hartley left stunned as the champions toil in the market while Hearts and Rangers act sharply to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2817,218,9531,30905,144329,2714,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-380072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-celtic-fc","tag-football","tag-hearts-fc","tag-martin-oneill","tag-paul-hartley","tag-rangers-fc","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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