Desmond forces O'Neill to be prudent

Celtic's majority shareholder Dermot Desmond yesterday all but ruled out the possibility of Martin O'Neill refreshing his squad with major signings this summer.

Despite making more than £10m from their run to the Uefa Cup final last season, the Irishman insisted that the Bhoys will still need to be "prudent" in the transfer market.

The Celtic manager believes that he needs to bring in a number of players after ending the season trophyless and with many of his current squad in the final stages of their careers. But Desmond hinted that O'Neill would have to sell before bringing in any high-profile acquisitions.

"If there's money available he'll get it," said Desmond. "If there's no money available he won't get it. We will do all our sums at the end of the day and it depends on what we hold, sell and what happens.

"That's the market call. They [the first-team squad] are on holiday at the present time and when they return from holiday we will look at that.

"There has to be a balance," he stressed. "It's easy for people to spend other people's money and spend money that's not there. We must be prudent because again we are just trustees of the club and we've got to ensure that it's financially stable, the measures are long lasting and not temporary."

This news is certain to frustrate O'Neill, but Desmond does not expect him to leave Parkhead as a result. He signed a rolling contract this season and although the Irish businessman believes that O'Neill is not "indispensable", he has told him that he wants him to stay for a long time.

"The security of having someone like Martin at the football club is the fact that he loves the club and he wants to be part of its development," Desmond said. "As long as Martin wants that I'm very happy, but the day that his contract runs out and he doesn't feel that then I would be disappointed."

Desmond feels further progress in Europe would enable O'Neill to have more more money to spend in the future. "Clubs have gone into debt endeavouring to build big teams to buy success and that's proved unsuccessful too," he warned. "We would all like to be better, but we're satisfied with the progress we have made."

"In the next few years we will see a lot of change in football in Europe because of the financial situation. Football in most countries is going through a catharsis whereby they have to deal with the financial problems. We have to make sure we are on that train by performing in European competitions."