Celtic go into the game against St Mirren with a lot of worries. One of them has to be their never-ending injury problems.

Kieran Tierney and Kasper Hogh are both missing. It is unclear when Callum Osmand will return, having been pictured with crutches and in a moon boot. And Landon Emenalo arrived injured with a knock he picked up in Chelsea training a few weeks back.

Of course, that has left Martin O'Neill short of options in some areas, especially at left-back. But it is not the only reason.

One cannot overlook Celtic's failures to even meet minimum expectations when it comes to some areas of the squad in the summer transfer window.

When Reo Hatate and Arne Engels leave in the same window, you expect at least a couple of top-quality players to be brought in to replace them. And for a while, it had looked like the club were planing to do that.

They were linked with players like Niko Sigur, Gvidas Ginetis and more, but none of those materialised after the club failed to make the Champions League.

In fact, for a little while, it had looked like they were still chasing the signature of Gineitis. But ultimately, a move did not happen.

Instead, the club ended up signing Oliver Sorensen on loan from Parma and Joel van den Berg from PSV on a permanent basis. But why did that move for Gineitis collapse?

Well, it looks like it was all down to the transfer price that was being asked for, which Celtic were not willing to pay.

According to The Celtic Way, O'Neill said about the move for Gineitis that failed to materialise despite confirmed interest in the player:

"We had more than an interest in him at the time. But it’s all very well having an interest and people feeling that they might want to come, you still have to negotiate with the club. That was a major thing at the end of the day.

"When clubs become adamant about a certain price for a player – and we are not in the market for overpriced players like in England – you have to deal with it as best as you can.

"If you feel there is a price for a player, sure you can negotiate, but if there is not really any phenomenal negotiations, then you need to do other things.

"We had an interest in another young lad who I think will be a brilliant player. I loved him and I thought we could do it, but the club sent him elsewhere."

Well, that was a very honest admission from O'Neill on why things did not work out as Celtic had been hoping for towards the end of the summer transfer window.

The club did try to fill the voids with loan signings for the most part, and the odd permanent signing here and there.

All things considered, though, I think it would be pretty safe to say that Celtic's end to the window would have looked very different if the club had managed to secure qualification to the Champions League.

It is what it is though. One can only hope that the signings that they eventually did make turn out to be success stories for the club in the long run.