The former Parkhead hero explains in his latest Record Sport column why the Canadian full back shouldn’t be allowed to join Everton before the end of the month
06:00, 01 Aug 2026
Alistair Johnston of Celtic celebrates
The feel good factor among Celtic supporters following the arrival of Kasper Hogh didn’t last too long.
The thought of Alistair Johnston and Arne Engels leaving has brought fans back down to earth with an almighty thump.
This only highlights how precarious this period is at Parkhead.
We know Engels is expected to leave this summer having been subject to a £25m bid from Nottingham Forest in January.
But West Ham?
No disrespect to the Hammers as they are a big club. If Engels wants to go there right now it would be a lack of ambition for me when they are in the Championship.
I know West Ham will pay big money but you can’t go there with the assumption they will go straight back up to the Premier League.
The Championship is a notoriously tough division to get out of and Engels should be aiming his sights at the top tier and competing in Europe – not battling for promotion.
It would be a strange one but it does look like he’s going, which will leave Celtic looking even lighter in midfield.
You have to think they will act swiftly to finalise a deal for Mika Baur but waiting for players to go before hitting the button on arrivals is not exactly a smooth way to work.
Celtic did it with Daizen Maeda and Kasper Hogh, but it’s a gamble if the next deal doesn’t get over the line.
(Image: Jamie Johnston/Focus Images Ltd/Shutterstock)
Engels’ stock got higher last season when he was out of the team through injury and he certainly played a part in the title win when he got back to fitness.
But not as much as Johnston. He was huge for Celtic in the run in.
Everton have made a move but Celtic simply can’t afford to lose him right now.
I got some flak for saying in last week’s column they should have held off selling Maeda until after the Champions League play-off but I stick by it.
The same goes for Johnston. He’s a massive player on the pitch and a leader in the dressing room. The Premier League doesn’t kick off until August 22, which is after the play-off first leg. Celtic shouldn’t be answering the phone until after then, because how the heck would you replace someone like Johnston for the biggest game of the season?
You can’t. We saw last season when Celtic drafted in Julian Araujo from Bournemouth.
That was a player who was on EPL money and had played at a high level – but he was still short of the standards set by Johnston.
Celtic don’t seem in a hurry to sell at all, and that is a positive, because there are already a lot of questions going into the new campaign and the European qualifier is now just over two weeks away.
We still don’t really know how Celtic will line up – or who will be in the team.
That’s got to be a concern for Martin O’Neill at this stage. I know the transfer market can be difficult but they should have been attacking it ferociously to get ready for the challenge. No one should dismiss the calibre of the opposition given what happened against Kairat 12 months ago.
The arrival of Hogh has appeased the fans in the short term and he does look like a quality addition.
I liked what I saw of him in the Champions League last season and I’ve also been impressed with Camilo Duran.
It’s about fitting them both in the team for O’Neill. Will he go back to his old favourite 3-5-2 formation? Or could we see a return to a 4-4-2?
I’d be on board with that one but the problems are elsewhere. In that set up you need legs in midfield but right now you’re looking at two 33-year-olds in Callum McGregor and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Benjamin Nygren, who isn’t exactly a ball winner.
You have to think Reo Hatate will be going or gone, along with Paulo Bernardo.
Baur could boost the numbers but Celtic can’t hang about. There are also concerns in the wide areas.
Hogh and Duran have got goals in them but they will need service. Right now it’s Sebastian Tounekti and Michel-Ange Balikwisha on the left, with Yang Hyun-jun and James Forrest on the right.
Celtic need more.
I can’t understand why these issues haven’t been sorted by now, especially when the board watched all of last season and knew what the team lacked.
There is still time to sort it and there are still question marks over Rangers and Hearts in terms of title rivals.
But O’Neill is now back to cobbling together a team when they could have blown the other two clubs out of the water.
In terms of the new campaign, it is going to be tough for Hearts having lost the spine of their team and their manager. There are a lot of new players and it’s going to take them time.
Europe was a sore one but it’s unfair to make snap judgements. Patience is going to be the word at Tynecastle this year, but it’s not something football fans are good at.
As for Rangers, they should be more resilient under Derek McInnes. They’ve signed a lot of players but for me they still lack a bit of creativity from midfield and the wide areas.
You’d expect them to be the main challengers to Celtic but a lot can change in the final weeks of the window.
There’s been a huge turnover of players in the Premiership this summer, with the likes of Motherwell and Kilmarnock having lost key men.
Aberdeen have a raft of new recruits and others still have a lot of business to do.
After the mayhem and drama of last season, it’s a bit of a step into the unknown this time around.
But it’s not going to be dull, that’s for sure.
