Martin O’Neill vows Celtic will ‘sort out’ juggling their striking options

Martin O’Neill agrees with Celtic skipper Callum McGregor’s questioning of his striking selections and insists they will “sort it out”.

The Hoops boss started the Premiership game against Dundee United with three centre-forwards – Callum Osmand, Kasper Hogh and Camilo Duran.

Then, when Celtic were 2-1 down at half-time, O’Neill took off Osmand and Hogh, moved scorer Duran into the middle and brought on wingers Jota and Hasseim Hassan.

Celtic pegged back the visitors to 2-2 to remain four points clear of Rangers at the top of the table but while they are, as usual, in a strong position in the league, they have lost three out of three Europa League games.

After the United game, McGregor said of the three striking positions: “It’s not really having a nailed-on profile for each of the positions. The players behave like a winger, or they behave like a striker.

“You can get away with it for a few games but if it’s a striker playing as a winger, you are going to get that behaviour a lot of the time.

“You’ve got enough quality so you can score goals and get away with it. But we have to try to get the team functioning the way it should.

“Then that will alleviate all the other problems that we are encountering, where it becomes a bit basketball, you lose control and spend the next 15 minutes trying to get possession back.”

With title rivals Rangers and Hearts involved in Premier Sports Cup semi-finals at Barclays Hampden this weekend, the Hoops have the chance to go seven points clear of the Light Blues when they travel to Falkirk on Sunday.

O’Neill said: “I’ve said this to you before, I totally agree that Osmand is actually really a centre forward. I’ve said it at the press conference, that he is essentially a centre forward who probably would play off somebody strong alongside him.

“Not so sure that he could lead the line on his own. And that Duran is really a centre forward.

“So the players are getting to know each other. It’s really as simple as that. So I’m in total agreement with Callum. We’ll sort it out.

“We seem to be doing okay domestically, trying to sort it out.

“There’s a few players that haven’t had a chance. (Jordan) Lotomba hasn’t had a chance yet to play. There’ll be moments, absolutely. There’ll be people in the squad.

“Young (Joel) van den BergVandenberg, again, has trained today. And so over the course of the next number of weeks, between now and Christmas, I think everybody will be on the field of play.

“And then it’s a matter of establishing, right positions as much as possible.

“Players have played out of position before. Don’t know whether it was a big issue when young Osmand came on in the Benfica game and set us alight.”