Celtic manager Martin O'Neill says the club are close to making two transfer deadline day signings, with a third not out of the question.
Freiburg striker Junior Adamu is due to undergo a medical with the Parkhead club, alongside Lorient winger Joel Mvuka.
With the window shutting at 11pm on Monday evening, O'Neill issued an update after his side's 2-0 win over Falkirk on Sunday afternoon.
"I think they've either done their medicals or are about to do them, so that helps us a little bit, you know, as much as anything else," the Celtic boss said of Adamu and Mvuka. "We might, you never know, there might be something else before Monday evening at 11 o'clock.
"And then you won't be able to ask me on Tuesday, which will be the biggest relief of all time! But it's always been the same, so it's not a problem.
"The first thing I think about, we have Kelechi Iheanacho, who's a very fine player and can hold the ball up, I think. Sometimes he's played very, very little, but he is—I think he can make an impact. He might not last games and things like this, so we definitely need someone strong in there. I think Adamu can do that. I think there's a little bit of pace with the young lad from Lorient (Mvuka). And I think that, yeah, so it'll just give us a couple of options as much as anything else.
"The players, I think they deserve it. I think their efforts have been really, really big, and I think you saw today (Sunday) where, with the number of games, there's just no respite for us. As a consequence, players would naturally feel tired. So this will help supplement the squad, as I said, and there might be, hopefully, a possibility of other things happening between now and 11 o'clock on Monday, I believe."
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Although there are expected to be several incomings at Celtic before the transfer deadline, outgoings could be sparse. English Premier League side Nottingham Forest are reportedly interested in Arne Engels, although O'Neill is keen to keep his club's record signing around.
"Yeah, absolutely," he said when asked if he wanted the Belgian midfielder to stay. "I would—yeah, no question about it.
"There's one or two of the lads here who have not played much football, and I can understand the frustrations of that. I know that, and if we can get some people in, I don't mind some players maybe going on loan or something like this who haven't played and desperately want to play.
"It's alright having a cause here like anything else, but if you're not playing, there's a natural frustration. So we'll see what develops in that, but obviously, I'm not talking about Arne, I'm just talking in general.
"But if nothing does develop over the next 24 hours, then I would really rather keep the players because we will need them. They might not see that at this minute, but if we stay in competitions, if we do—and that's a big if—then we will need them."
Dane Murray started in central defence for Celtic in the victory over Falkirk. He was preferred to fellow academy graduate Stephen Welsh, who was recalled from his loan spell at Motherwell at the beginning of this year.
"Welsh has done very, very well at Motherwell, and in an ideal world, he would probably want to go back," O'Neill said. "And again, I don't really want to stop him when he's on a really good run there at this minute. So that might depend on us getting someone else in as cover.
"We only have the three centre-backs at this minute, and Welsh, you know, he wants to play. Obviously, he'd like to play at Celtic. If I can't guarantee that for him, then obviously, he wants to play with Motherwell, where he has done exceptionally well. But if we don't get anybody else in, then that's a case of wanting to keep him here and then just battling for a place."
On striker Tomas Cvancara getting off the mark on Sunday, O'Neill added, "It was great, and it was the breakthrough as well, which was needed. And that's nice for him and it'll give him a really big boost of confidence. There are parts of his game I think that obviously need tidying up, which I think he can do.
"He hasn't played much football in recent times, so that's two games for us. He's come in and he's got the goal. So he wants to prove himself, and I think that there's a player there."
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