Martin O’Neill explains why Celtic’s new signings are struggling to adapt
Martin O’Neill has admitted several of the club’s summer signings have been surprised by the pace of Scottish football as they continue adapting to life at Parkhead.
The Hoops boss made several changes to his starting XI for Thursday night’s dramatic 3-2 Europa League victory over Besiktas, with Jordan Lotomba and Kasper Høgh among those handed opportunities to impress.
However, it was O’Neill’s second-half substitutions that transformed the contest, with Callum Osmand scoring with his first touch before Camilo Durán netted his 13th goal of the season to secure Celtic’s first European points of the campaign.
O’Neill believes patience is required with some of his new arrivals, insisting the demands of domestic and European football have presented a greater challenge than certain players anticipated.
Speaking after the victory, O’Neill said: “Well, when everybody gets a proper chance. Jordan Lotomba, that was the first game that he started. So you’re getting to know.
“And really, there’s a couple of other players who didn’t get on tonight, like Oliver Sorensen and people — you don’t absolutely know yet what they can do on a basis here, of playing both European matches and obviously the difficulty of playing the domestic games.
“The domestic games are not easy. I think the players who have come into the football club have been surprised in many aspects by the pace of the domestic game, believe it or not.
“I’m not saying everything is a great, great moment, but it is the pace of the game, and they haven’t been able to. It takes a wee bit of time to adapt. But when we do, then we should know.
“But you keep talking about what we know as their best team — we have to change. We have to have other players come into the side, because we cannot sustain this really on a basis like we’re doing.
“So you’re going into big European games; Besiktas are a very fine side. They might be disappointed tonight, but we’ve beaten them, and that was a big result for us.”
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