Celtic assistant boss rules out panic buys

Published on Thursday 25 June 2009 15:37

Celtic assistant manager Mark Venus will forego Champions League football this season in order to get the right players into the club.

The new Hoops' management team of Venus, manager Tony Mowbray and first-team coach Peter Grant are already preparing for their first Champions League qualifier on July 28 or 29, which comes before the Clydesdale Bank Premier League season begins on August 15.

Celtic will be without key man Shunsuke Nakamura who is to join Espanyol, and there are doubts over the futures of midfielder Paul Hartley and striker Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, who are both out of contract.

Skipper Stephen McManus will miss the start of the season as he recovers from a knee injury and midfielder Scott Brown is a doubt with an ankle problem.

However, Venus, speaking to the media at Celtic's Lennoxtown training centre, claimed there will be no panic buying over the next few weeks.

He said: "Obviously we have lost a couple of players and we will be trying to bring players in.

"Who they are and where they are, I don't know.

"Personally, and this is me speaking, I don't care how long it takes to bring people into this football club.

"If we have to miss the Champions League qualifier, the bottom line is, I'd like to think we will manage this football club for a lot of years and I'd like to think the players we are going to bring to this club are going to stay with us for a couple of years.

"So I would not want to panic into bringing in a footballer to do a job on the 27th of July when I might regret bringing him in for the next four years.

"We have to bring in the players who we think are right."