Martin O’Neill believes Celtic have a real “handful” in Haissem Hassan after praising the winger’s performance in Saturday night’s 2-1 victory over St Mirren.
The Egyptian started on the right of Celtic’s front three in Paisley and caused Declan John problems throughout, growing into the contest as O’Neill’s side recovered from a goal down to maintain their perfect domestic start.
Hassan, who joined from Real Oviedo in a deal which could rise to £9million with add-ons, completed more dribbles than any other player and registered 0.90 expected assists.
“Hassan, 1v1s, he can beat players all day long or all night long,” O’Neill said in his post-game press conference via PLZ Soccer. “Again, he’s one that needs to get up to speed.
“He did fine in the World Cup, really fine in the World Cup. Not that we judged him in that, but he did fine. Then after the World Cup, I think he took about a seven or eight day holiday and that’s it.
“So he’s been doing a little bit of training on his own, but he’s a handful. He’s definitely a handful. He played a delightful ball just at the start of the second half.
“He needs to get up to speed. He needs to obviously do a bit more work going backwards like everything else. But yeah, great.”
Hassan could soon have an even bigger role to play in Celtic’s attack, with fellow winger Hyun-jun Yang heading away on Asian Games duty with South Korea.
Yang struck the winner against St Mirren, his second goal in as many matches, but will miss upcoming fixtures against St Johnstone, Rangers, Ferencvaros and Rangers again due to his international commitments.
“We are going to miss him. He’s in really fine form at the moment. Really disappointed,” O’Neill continued. “He’s signed off, brilliant goal. He’s in great form and he’ll work for you going backwards. He doesn’t mind doing that hard graft.
“St Mirren did not surprise me at all, not in the least. They were really up for it, they played very, very well indeed, caused us plenty of problems, and took the lead.
“There was a 10 or 15 minute spell in the first half where I thought that we were well and truly second best. We came out with renewed energy, renewed determination in the second half, got the equalising goal, went on to win it. But it was a tough evening for us.”
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