Celtic boss O'Neill makes feelings clear over Hassan following summer transfer

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Matthew Judge | Editor

Celtic boss Martin O’Neill has praised Haissem Hassan as the summer signing acclimatises to life in the Scottish Premiership.

Hassan joined the Bhoys from Spanish outfit Real Oviedo for a fee that could rise to €10.4million (£9m) with add-ons in August.

The 24-year-old, who caught the eye for Egypt at this summer’s World Cup, made his third start in a row for Celtic in Saturday’s 2-1 win at St. Mirren.

STATS

Haissem Hassan

F, M (R)

Celtic

Haissem Hassan

F, M (R)

Celtic

All Tournaments

2026/27

• 5

  Games

• 0

  Goals

• 0

  Assists

View all stats

And while manager O’Neill admits Hassan is not fully up to speed, he said the forward is doing “great” in his attempts to get there.

Asked about Hassan’s performance against St. Mirren, O’Neill said: “Hassan, [in] 1v1s, he can beat players all day long or all night long. Again, he's one that needs to get up to speed.

“He did fine in the World Cup, really fine in the World Cup. Not that we judged him in that, but he did fine. Then after the World Cup, I think he took about a seven or eight day holiday and that's it.

“So he's been doing a little bit of training on his own, but he's a handful. He's definitely a handful. He played a delightful ball just at the start of the second half.

“He needs to get up to speed. He needs to obviously do a bit more work going backwards like everything else. But yeah, great.”

Hassan, who had the joint-most touches (9) in the opposition box and completed the most dribbles (3), was replaced by James Forrest after 72 minutes at St. Mirren.

Celtic fought back from a first-half Nikolas Agrafiotis penalty to win 2-1 at the Marbill Coaches Stadium on Saturday evening.

Second-half goals from Liam Scales and Hyun-Jun Yang saw the Scottish giants record their fifth straight victory in the Premiership this season.

Celtic match-winner Yang to miss the next four games

However, Celtic will be without the in-form Yang for the next four games as the winger participates in the Asian Games for South Korea.

“We are going to miss him,” O’Neill said of Yang, who will miss Celtic’s clashes with St. Johnstone and Ferencvaros, as well as two games against Rangers.

“He's in really fine form at the moment. Really disappointed [he is going to be unavailable for the next four matches].

“He’s signed off, brilliant goal. He's in great form and he'll work for you going backwards. He doesn't mind doing that hard graft.”

Celtic will look to make it six Premiership wins in a row when they travel to St. Johnstone on Wednesday, before next Sunday's Scottish League Cup quarter-final clash at Rangers.