Celtic’s Right-Back Crisis Needs a Permanent Fix This Summer

Celtic’s right-back search gets its most direct summer signal yet from Cruz Azul, who are targeting Julián Araujo for the Apertura 2026 campaign. Mediotiempo’s El Bolero column reports the Liga MX champions have made the Bournemouth defender a priority signing, with club figure Víctor Velázquez expected to lead the approach. The 24-year-old made 13 appearances at Celtic Park, scored once, and returned south with a thigh problem in March before re-injuring himself during rehabilitation. His loan contained no purchase option. Mexico left him out of the 2026 FIFA World Cup squad.

Martin O’Neill’s first full summer window as Celtic’s permanent manager opened Monday. Right-back is the position with the most unresolved history waiting in front of it.

Six Months That Burned Celtic’s Right Flank

The breakdown at right-back did not happen in one match. It accumulated across five months in parallel injury timelines that stripped Celtic of every natural option in that position by the season’s most critical stretch.

Alistair Johnston, the Canada international who had been Celtic’s established starter on the right, went for hamstring surgery in October 2025. Celtic entered the January window without a recognised right-back and brought the Mexican international in on loan to cover the gap. He fitted quickly: energy on the overlap, composure in the Premiership’s physical game, and a last-minute winner at Rugby Park in February that made him an unlikely fan favourite within weeks.

A thigh problem stopped him in March. Celtic sent him back to Bournemouth for treatment and expected a return before the season ended. In April, the Celtic manager confirmed the situation had worsened. The right-back had re-injured himself under the direct supervision of the Cherries’ own medical staff, in a controlled rehabilitation setting.

With the loan over, Colby Donovan stepped in as emergency cover and promptly picked up his own hamstring strain at Tannadice. Celtic still won the championship on the final day against Hearts and the Scottish Cup 3-1 over Dunfermline Athletic. But the Celtic manager spent the final weeks filling the right flank with players out of position. The trophies are the headline. The right-back situation is what the summer window has to answer.

• 13 appearances at Celtic Park before injury ended the loan spell
• October 2025: Johnston’s hamstring surgery began months of positional vulnerability
• 3 right-backs (Johnston, Donovan, and the Mexican loanee) unavailable or compromised in the final run-in
• 1 goal scored for Celtic, the last-minute winner at Kilmarnock’s Rugby Park in February

Cruz Azul’s Interest Makes One Decision Easier

Liga MX champions Cruz Azul are not scouting out of nostalgia for five months in Glasgow. They won their tenth domestic title in 2026 and the Concacaf Champions League (the regional knockout competition for clubs across North and Central America and the Caribbean) in 2025. Their right-back position has a structural gap after Jorge Sánchez departed for Greek side PAOK, and their recruitment team has identified the former Celtic loanee as the priority solution for the Apertura campaign ahead.

Per the Cruz Azul right-back recruitment analysis from latination.com, the Mexican champions have tracked him for more than a year. His failure to earn a Mexico World Cup place adds personal dimension to the professional calculation. After an injury-interrupted winter in Glasgow and a miss from El Tri’s squad for a home tournament, playing regularly for a title-winning club in front of Mexican crowds is a more direct proposition than returning to a Premier League bench with no path into the team.

His connection to Celtic had genuine warmth. The player’s cousin came to Glasgow for the Scottish Cup final and publicly called on the club to make the deal permanent. When left out of Mexico’s World Cup squad, the defender wrote on Instagram: “Wishing all the success to the lads.” A permanent Celtic move was never formally possible; the loan contained no purchase mechanism for the Hoops to exercise.

Cruz Azul have not submitted a formal offer. Mediotiempo describes the club as “sounding out the price” before entering talks with the Premier League club. Monterrey are also tracking the same player, giving the English club two potential Mexican buyers rather than one. Celtic’s position in this chain is well downstream of all three other parties.

What Araujo’s Celtic Record Tells O’Neill

The loan had genuine value. The right-back showed pace, technical quality, and an instinct for the Premiership’s physical demands within weeks of arriving at Parkhead. At Rugby Park in February, converted in the 97th minute, he showed the composure supporters want from a player in those moments.

Julián reinjured himself under supervision at Bournemouth, so that was a real blow. I don’t think we will see him again if it’s the same injury that he has redone.

The Celtic manager said that to Sky Sports in April. The right-back had followed medical protocols and returned south on the club’s instruction. The muscle failed under controlled conditions managed by a Premier League club’s medical staff, removing the obvious explanation that Celtic or the player’s eagerness caused the setback.

Before the Parkhead loan, Araujo’s injury record on Soccerway shows a five-month thigh layoff from November 2024 to April 2025, two muscle injuries in spring 2024, and a third separate muscle problem that summer. Four muscular injuries in a single 12-month window, all at the Premier League club before he had kicked a ball in Glasgow. He arrived at Celtic Park without a single Premier League appearance in the 2025/26 season.

O’Neill is not a sentimental operator. In his first weeks as Celtic’s interim manager, he cut Michel-Ange Balikwisha and Junior Adamu, two players with no place in his plans, without ceremony. A defender he admires, with a complicated medical file, who is reportedly drawn toward a move home to Mexico, is a file he can close without the decision troubling him.

The Fee Standing Between All Three Parties

Bournemouth’s position is the pivot in any scenario. They paid £8.5m to sign the defender from Barcelona in August 2024, on a five-year deal with three years still to run. He made one appearance for the club before the Celtic loan, none in the Premier League. They will not sell cheaply to a buyer whose typical transfer fees sit well below the English market rate.

Transfermarkt values the player at €10m (approximately £8.5m at current exchange rates), consistent with what the club paid two years ago. Cruz Azul meeting that figure is possible given their resources, but not guaranteed when the alternative is keeping a contracted player and waiting for higher interest elsewhere. The Premier League transfer window, which opened June 15 and closes September 1, gives the English club the full summer to hold out for the right price.

The only scenario that pulls Celtic back into this conversation requires the English club to offer a deeply discounted purchase option attached to a new loan. Given the right-back’s reported pull toward a Liga MX return and two Mexican clubs already competing for him, that scenario is theoretical.

O’Neill’s Right-Back Blueprint for Next Season

The Johnston Fitness Question

Johnston was back on the Celtic training pitch in April after his October hamstring surgery but did not return to match action before the domestic season closed. His readiness for the Champions League qualifying rounds in late July is the variable that determines how urgently the club must move in this transfer window.

Scottish Premiership champions typically enter the competition at the first qualifying round, the earliest entry point before play-offs and the group stage, with first legs in the final week of July. Six weeks from the window’s opening day is a short runway if a signing is needed urgently.

The Canadian needs a clean preseason programme to give Celtic’s coaching staff confidence the right flank is covered. Any fitness concern, and Celtic must have a signed alternative in place before the first European whistle blows. They cannot manage that risk the same way they managed it all winter, hoping someone steps in when they are needed.

Where O’Neill Should Be Looking

Per Celtic’s confirmation of O’Neill’s permanent appointment on June 11, the Northern Irish boss was given the mandate to rebuild properly after salvaging a domestic double from a turbulent season. Neil Lennon, the Dunfermline Athletic manager who played under the Irishman in his first Celtic tenure, called publicly for the club to “loosen the purse strings” and give the 74-year-old the best possible chance at Champions League qualification.

The English Championship and Eastern European markets hold the right profile: a right-back aged 23 to 26, physically durable, comfortable with a Saturday-Wednesday-Saturday schedule, priced under £5m. Celtic’s summer list is longer than one position. Kasper Schmeichel’s retirement created a goalkeeper vacancy. Midfielder Reo Hatate has formally requested a transfer. Arne Engels is reportedly the subject of a £25m enquiry from Nottingham Forest, and if that fee clears it creates real reinvestment capacity across the squad.

The right-back replacement does not need to cost more than a fraction of that. What the position needs, after six months of makeshift patches and emergency cover, is a player who can handle every third day through a Scottish winter and a European campaign without availability becoming the weekly worry. Celtic’s Champions League qualifying draw lands in early July. The 74-year-old needs his answer before then.