Celtic boss O'Neill eager to keep Johnston & Engels for play-off

Martin O'Neill hopes Celtic can keep Arne Engels and Alistair Johnston for the Champions League play-off against Austrian champions LASK.

>West Ham are trying to sign 22-year-old Belgium midfielder Engels while Everton have targeted 27-year-old Canada full-back Johnston.

>Celtic will play at home in the first leg on 18/19 August, with the return game the following week.

>Both Engels and Johnston started the season opener on Monday night as Benjamin Nygren's header gave O'Neill's defending champions a 1-0 win over Dundee.

>O'Neill felt his side "did enough to win" but then was asked about the possibility of keeping Engels and Johnston for the European qualifiers.

>"Ideally, that would be brilliant, that would be really good," he said.

>"We wouldn't know if the other clubs would want to pursue that, if that was the case.

>"I'm quite sure that anybody starting off in their own particular leagues would want their players in as soon as possible.

>"But ideally, that would be great. I think that that's one of the things that we will definitely be looking at.

>"I seriously could not say for sure, you'd have to take players' thoughts into consideration and maybe the other clubs, but overall for me selfishly that would be great.

>"Alistair and Arne both said to me that they would want to play in the game if things had not progressed. And I thought they did fine.

>"Alistair has got a very strong mindset anyway.

>"But you are naturally worried about transfer speculation in the background and how you might take the game into consideration psychologically as well ask physically.

>"But I thought they did fine. I cannot update you on any progress from the other day because I don't know any."

>O'Neill reaffirmed his quest to further bolster his squad following the signings of strikers Camilo Duran and Kasper Hogh.

>He said: "Well, I'm hoping that we'll get some players in. That's the aim. We have two and they're decent players for us but we're striving to get some more in."

[BBC]