Just like that, Celtic's pre-season is underway. Of course, the eyes of the planet are on the ongoing World Cup. But Martin O'Neill's side cannot afford to sit still either.

The 25/26 campaign might have ended in a double, but there were a lot of areas where Celtic were found lacking. They will need to improve upon those.

One way to do that will be to add to the squad by signing quality players. And it looks like the club are closing in on their first signing of the window in the form of Camilo Duran.

Of course, there are several areas where Celtic will be looking to improve this summer in the transfer market. One of them is centre-back.

That need might be further underlined due to the fact that one of their centre-backs is set to miss out in the opening two league games of the season due to a ban carrying over from the previous season.

According to CeltsAreHere, Liam Scales will miss Celtic’s opening two league matches. He was booked in the game against Motherwell.

That was his 12th yellow card of the season, which means a two-game ban. But that is only effective in the same competition from the 7th day following the date of the match when the cautionable offence was incurred.

As a result, he was able to play in the final league game of the season, the title decider against Hearts, which was just three days later.

But it is set to carry over, which means that Celtic will not have Scales available when they take on Dundee and Kilmarnock in their opening two league games of the season.

One piece of good news for Celtic is that Cameron Carter-Vickers is now back on the pitch. He featured in their opening pre-season matchup against Shelbourne.

It is not going to be easy for him to get back to his best form after such a long layoff. Let's just hope that there are no further setbacks.

If Carter-Vickers can remain fit, he should not have a tough time starting alongside Auston Trusty in the heart of defence in the opening two league games.

One could argue that it is a better fit as well due to the left-right combination, something that the Hoops struggled with when building out from the back and trying to defend counters.

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