O´Neill hopes Celtic keep Engels and Johnston for Champions League...

Martin O'Neill hopes Celtic can keep hold of Arne Engels and Alistair Johnston for the crunch Champions League qualifiers against Austrian champions LASK.

West Ham are actively pursuing 22-year-old midfielder Engels while Everton have targeted 27-year-old Canada full-back Johnston.

Celtic will play at home in the first leg on 18/19 August, with the return game the following week.

Both Engels and Johnston started in the 1-0 win over Dundee which got the Scottish champions off to a positive start to the defence of their William Hill Premiership title thanks to a Benjamin Nygren header.

O'Neill felt his side "did enough to win" but then was asked about the possibility of keeping Engels and Johnston for the European qualifiers.

The Hoops boss said: "Ideally, that would be brilliant, that would be really good.

O´Neill hopes to keep Engels and Johnston for the Champions League play-offs (Andrew Milligan/PA)

"We wouldn't know if the other clubs would want to pursue that, if that was the case.

"I'm quite sure that anybody starting off in their own particular leagues would want their players in as soon as possible.

"But ideally, that would be great. I think that that's one of the things that we will definitely be looking at.

"I seriously could not say for sure, you'd have to take players' thoughts into consideration and maybe the other clubs, but overall for me selfishly that would be great.

"Alistair and Arne both said to me that they would want to play in the game if things had not progressed. And I thought they did fine.

"Alistair has got a very strong mindset anyway.

"But you are naturally worried about transfer speculation in the background and how you might take the game into consideration psychologically as well ask physically.

"But I thought they did fine. I cannot update you on any progress from the other day because I don't know any."

O'Neill reaffirmed his quest to further bolster his squad following the signings of Camilo Duran, the Colombian striker signed from Qarabag of Azerbaijan reportedly for £5.5million and Kasper Hogh, the Denmark forward who cost a club record £11m plus add-ons from Norwegian side Bodo/Glimt.

He said: "Well, I'm hoping that we'll get some players in. That's the aim. We have two and they're decent players for us but we're striving to get some more in."

Dundee boss Steven Pressley praised his side's efforts in a tough opening game of the league season.

The former Celtic defender said: "I asked for a number of things from our players.

"I asked them to be brave and I thought they were exceptionally brave. Both in and out of possession we were very aggressive in our pressure, but also I thought we showed good composure with the ball.

"I asked for a performance full of endeavour and spirit and I thought we got that in abundance.

"We gave an exceptional performance from that. We know we had to ride our luck a couple of times, Celtic had a few big opportunities.

"But that's normal coming here and I think considering the period of transition that we've experienced from last year, the players we've lost, the integration of new players, I couldn't be prouder of the group."

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