Stephen Welsh suffered a nightmare debut on loan at Mechelen as he was hooked at half-time while up against his old Celtic team-mate Oh.
The stopper has moved to Belgium after finding top team games hard to come by at Parkhead but he lasted just 45 minutes in his first outing. Mechelen took a quick-fire lead through Benito Raman after just eight minutes but conceded twice in 10 minutes before the break and Welsh didn’t reappear for the second half.
Manage Besnik Hasi said: “Racing Genk was better in many aspects. They were faster, smarter and more technical, and we were not good enough. Our block was too big. We were going to put pressure, but we had not agreed on that. As a result, the defense did not keep up and there was too much space. The 1-1 hurt us. We lost our way for a while. And in the second half we did not create enough.”
Oh also struggled for game time at the Hoops at joined Genk at the start of the season. He has scored six goals and was also substituted, although late on.
Next up for Celtic are Young Boys and new boss Giorgio Contini insists his side have to stop being so wasteful if they are to stun Celtic this week. The Hoops face the Swiss Champions League whipping boys on Wednesday, with YB bottom of the new look format with no points and a -19 goal difference.
They came out of their winter break and fought out a disappointing goalless draw with bottom side Winterthur. And Contini – who took charge of the club last month – admitted they must do more in Scotland. He said: “It’s a shame we didn’t reward ourselves with goals for our good performance. This was a game where we deserved to win comfortably.
“Their goalkeeper had a very good game and we never got any luck. However, I saw a team of players who were on it from the start. My concern is we made a lot of poor decisions in the attacking side of the game and we have to take our chances against Celtic in Glasgow.
“We played a good, dominant match for long stretches – the only thing missing were the goals. It felt like an evening where we could have continued playing for 15 to 20 minutes – and still not scored. We know we need to do better in Glasgow.”
Meanwhile, Internacional bos boss Roger Machado has reassured his own fans after a delay in announcing the signing of Celtic star Alexandro Bernabei. The Hoops full back has agreed a £4 million move to the Brazilian club after impressing on loan last season.
However, Internacional have yet to officially confirm the deal and their fans have feared the deal has collapsed. But boss Machado has urged them to be patient. He said: “You have to remember we first started talking with Celtic about Bernabei as far back at November.
“The deal is almost complete and just needs very small alterations to confirm it. There’s no worry about Bernabei’s fitness either. Bernabei is one of those guys who quickly regains his rhythm, he is young, he didn’t completely stop during the holidays too. This is a guy who was named as the best full back in Brazil. He will be worth the wait.”