'Done their medicals' - Martin O'Neill hints at busy Celtic transfer deadline day amid £100million claim

The Scottish champions took full advantage of Rangers’ slip-up against Hibs earlier on Sunday afternoon to move into second place on goal difference with a 2-0 win over Falkirk at Celtic Park thanks to goals from Tomas Cvancara and the league’s top goal-scorer Benjamin Nygren.

However, the 73-year-old admits he needs to add further numbers to his squad in order to compete in the final four months of the campaign, and he revealed that both Freiburg’s Junior Adamu and Lorient’s Joel Mvuka are closing in on moves to the club, with medicals planned for both.

“They've either done their medicals or are about to do them,” admitted O’Neill. “So that helps us a little bit, you know, as much as anything else. We might, you never know, there might be something else before Monday evening at 11. Then you won't be able to ask me on Tuesday, which will be the biggest relief of all time. But it's always been the same, so it's not a problem.

“The first thing I think about, we have Kelechi Iheanacho, who's a very fine player and can hold the ball up, I think. Sometimes he's played very, very little, but he is—I think he can make an impact. He might not last games and things like this, so we definitely need someone strong in there. I think Adamu can do that. I think there's a little bit of pace with the young lad from Lorient [Mvuka]. And I think that, yeah, so it'll just give us a couple of options as much as anything else.

“The players, I think they deserve it. I think their efforts have been really, really big, and I think you saw today where, with the number of games, there's just no respite for us. As a consequence, players would naturally feel tired. So this will help supplement the squad, as I said, and there might be, hopefully, a possibility of other things happening between now and 11 o'clock, I believe.”

On outgoings, O’Neill conceded that he doesn’t want to lose any of his current players as he addressed rumours of a £14million bid for Belgium international midfielder Engels from Nottingham Forest, while he also discussed the possibility of Stephen Welsh returning to Motherwell on loan before the window shuts on Monday evening.

“I hadn't heard that [Forest’s bid for Engels],” said O’Neill. “There's one or two of the lads here who have not played much football, and I can understand frustrations of that there. I know that, and if we can get some people in, I don't mind some players maybe going on loan or something like this who haven't played and desperately want to play.

“If you're not playing, there's a natural frustration. So we'll see what develops in that - I'm not talking about Arne here - I'm just talking in general. But if nothing does develop over the next 24 hours, then I would really rather keep the players because we will need them. They might not see that at this minute, but if we stay in competitions, if we do—and that's a big if—then we will need them.

“If they've done it [made a bid] then they must have done it during the game. Because I didn't know anything about it, honestly. And I would want it rebuffed, unless it was £100million, then I think the board would step in there.

“Welshy has done very, very well at Motherwell, and in an ideal world, he would probably want to go back, and I don't really want to stop him when he's on a really good run there at this minute. So that might depend on us getting someone else in as cover.

“We only have the three centre-backs at this minute, and Welshy, you know, he wants to play. Obviously he'd like to play at Celtic. If I can't guarantee that for him, then obviously he wants to play with Motherwell where he has done exceptionally well. So, but if we don't get anybody else in, then that's a case of wanting to keep him here and then just battling for a place.”

Sign up to The Scotsman’s daily football newsletter to get unrivalled Scottish football news and analysis - subscribe for free here.