Celtic losing Matt O'Riley 'wouldn't be a disaster'

It's thought that it will take an offer of over £20million to prize the Danish internationalist away from Glasgow. 

Even so, Alan McInally reckons any possible departure would not raise mass panic throughout the Scottish Premiership champions and that the Celtic hierarchy are probably already preparing for his loss.

"It wouldn’t be a disaster," stated McInally. "Anytime a player leaves a football club that has played such a main part, then people will be disappointed.

"Everything moves on. Players leave, somebody else comes in, and the whole thing continues on. It just depends maybe on what the player wants to do.

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"Would he (O’Riley) be good enough for the Premier League? Yeah I think so, it depends where he goes I suppose. With the greatest respect to him, he’s not been sought after by Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City or Arsenal etc. So there’s a level there that teams think he could do a job for them. And then it’s up to him to prove to everybody he’s better than he is.

"When I left Celtic people were saying ‘oh you’re going to England’, and I said ‘well I’m going to try and prove myself’ - it’s no different now 20 or 30 years later. If he gets to England whether it’s the Championship, which incidentally is such a competitive league and everybody knows that, or the Premier League, I think he’s probably good enough to do that.

"The only thing is Celtic don’t want to lose him, and that would be the main thing. Because Celtic have big fish to fry themselves, never mind losing one of their better players."

McInally, who represented Celtic almost 70 times between 1984 and 1987, admits he was shocked to see Brendan Rodgers return for a second spell in the Parkhead hot seat but the popular pundit is delighted to have him back winning trophies.

Speaking to Gambling.com as part of their Euro 2024 panel show, he commented: "I was actually a little surprised that Brendan even went back to Celtic, genuinely I was. I didn't think that would be a destination that he would pick up again.

"But he has. And by the way: won the league, put his biggest rivals in their place, Rangers, and that will be the biggest carrot again this season. To make sure he gets players in that can keep Celtic at the top of the league, and maybe more importantly for the fans, make them more competitive in Europe and try and go further in Europe than they ever have.

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"I think he’s a good manager, I think he's a good coach. I think he’s good with the players, and he knows what he’s doing.

"There’s a manager with an international football team that has a stick that you can’t believe for three weeks, and is now sitting in the final of the EUROs. Now he’s the greatest thing that ever drew breath.

"That’s what happens as a manager. There were a couple of stories that I was told that there might be a possibility he will leave to go elsewhere, but it looks like he’s staying and I think that’s good news for Celtic."