Martin O'Neill highlights Celtic squad issue and pleads the case for 'really impressive' youngsters

The manager revealed he had been taken aback when he realised just how big the playing group will be once loanees like Maik Nawrocki, Stephen Welsh, Luis Palma and Johnny Kenny report back for duty.

O’Neill likely won’t be around to witness that squad upholstery in action but made a plea for the door to remain ajar for those plying their trade down the age grades. The Northern Irishman and one of his assistants, Mark Fotheringham, took in a B team friendly last week and believes promoting from within is just as important a part of Celtic’s DNA as winning silverware.

“We will have a top-heavy squad come the end of the season or when people start reporting back,” he said. “I did not realise how big it was. But if I was still here I'd like to make room for younger players coming through.

“Myself and Fozzy went to watch the B team playing Brentford last Tuesday at Barrowfield and some of the younger lads are really impressive. Hopefully these players can come through in the next couple of years because that would be lovely. It would be really nice to see young boys who've got the club at heart, who've been maybe in the academies here since they were about 12 or 13, to come through.

“I think we should have an eye on that and not stifle young talent coming through, particularly here, because Scottish football needs it.”

O’Neill helped give early opportunities to the likes of Shaun Maloney, now his assistant, John Kennedy and David Marshall during his first stint as manager in early 2000s and acknowledged it was a balancing act to field a successful team without stunting the growth of talented youngsters.

“It was a wee bit like when I was here the first time around, way back,” he recalled. “You had some serious players but you had to win. And Celtic hadn't won for some time.

“So, while we had some young kids that we felt might have been able to (do a job) with a bit more nurturing, a bit more time, you didn't have that time. That's the problem here.

“It'd be lovely to take a leaf out of Sir Alex Ferguson's book and say you've got about seven or eight great kids coming through. But he knew that they were great kids anyway. So, the point I'm making is that you have to win at this football club. That's the first and most important thing. But bringing players through is still fundamental, too. And it would be nice to have that mixture.”

O’Neill also believes that, whoever succeeds him as manager, will need to try to get players off the wage bill before they can start to look at bringing new ones in.

“You couldn't cope with that (size of squad). And that might not be the easiest thing in the world. Of course, we've got some players here that other teams in big leagues will probably want.

“But if you're talking about players coming back from loans, who maybe have another two years to run, those things might be difficult.”