Celtic boss Martin O'Neill has backed Sebastian Tounekti to win over his doubters at Parkhead, drawing parallels with the transformation of teammate Yang. The Tunisian winger, who arrived from Hammarby IF for £5million last summer, has struggled for consistency but could get a rare chance to impress in tonight's clash with St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park.
Yang, who has been away at the Asian Games, has gone from a figure of criticism to one of the first names on the team sheet over the past year. O'Neill believes Tounekti has the raw qualities to follow the same path.
O'Neill's confidence in Tounekti
“Seb's good, he's got really good ability around the edge of the penalty box. The thing I like about him is that he can go both ways,” O'Neill said. “Sometimes there's a bit of frustration, but there'll always be a bit of frustration with wide players who might lose the ball once or twice. The most important thing to tell wide players is if they can go past people, just keep doing it.”
He added: “That's an easy comment for a manager to make, but it's different when you've lost it two times in the trot, and the crowd then start to get really anxious and you think, ‘well the next time I think I'll just lay it off.' I don't want that, I want to still encourage people to go past them. And when he comes inside he can do that. When he's in and around the edge of the box, he can actually check outside and put it across.”
Tounekti's opportunity and Yang's absence
Tounekti will look to seize his chance, but Celtic face a significant challenge without Yang, who is unavailable for the next four games. That rules him out of the Old Firm double-header and the Europa League clash with Ferencvaros.
“He will be a big miss for us. He's playing exceptionally well for what he does with the ball. He's scored a couple of very important goals for us,” O'Neill said. “And what he's doing without the ball, I don't think anybody could question his work rate for us at the football club. He's been great, but he's been great since I've come in here. I think he's just responded to a bit of encouragement. He can definitely go past players, which is great, and then he's the first one to work back. So he's a big miss for us in that position that he has finally determined to be his own.”
O'Neill still unsure of best XI
Despite Celtic's perfect domestic start, O'Neill admits he is still no closer to knowing his best starting lineup. “I don't think I've ever had an idea of what my best side has been! The answer is no at the moment because the very obvious thing is that we've got some young boys coming into the football club,” he said.
“Oliver Sorensen has arrived, he's on loan. And then we obviously have Joel Van den Berg, he's come in. So I don't know. The side that I maybe put out on Wednesday or the side that went out on Saturday evening, maybe after the international break, might not be the side that you feel might be our best team. So from that viewpoint, no, I wouldn't know exactly what these lads can do in a matchday environment for us. I know what they can do in matchday environments for the teams that we've taken them from, but not for us.”
O'Neill also revealed a conversation with Mika Baur after Saturday's game, saying: “I was speaking to a little Mika Baur after the game on Saturday night, I said, 'These games are tough, wouldn't you agree with that? They're tough, tough matches'.”
