Neil Lennon insists he is “delighted with the strength and depth” of his Celtic squad.

And while the number of players at Celtic Park has been trimmed, Lennon has retained his “big assets”.

“It’s been a very good window for us in terms of bringing players in and keeping the players that we wanted,” said the manager.

“I woke up this morning absolutely delighted. Delighted with squad of players and certainly with the Laxalt signing.

“We’ve come out of the window very strong and we’ve got great depth. We’ve kept all our best players and added international quality.”

AC Milan defender Laxalt is Lennon’s third loan signing, along with Shane Duffy and a return for Mohamed Elyounoussi.

Around £12m was spent on bringing in Albian Ajeti, Vasilis Barkas, and David Turnbull on permanent deals.

“Barkas is doing a great job, Duffy has been exceptionally good and Turnbull is a great young talent who will flourish here,” said Lennon. “I could go on and on about the players we have signed.

“We have kept Odsonne Edouard, we have kept Kristoffer Ajer, the Christies and the McGregors [Ryan Christie and Callum McGregor]. All these players are big assets and that’s been a difficult thing to do when you consider the financial position a lot of clubs are in.”

Celtic are on an eight-game winning streak in all competitions since suffering a surprise home defeat to Ferencvaros in Champions League qualifying, with Lennon picking up the Premiership manager of the month award for September.

TV pundit Charlie Nicholas was critical of his former club’s summer spending in his newspaper column, suggesting Lennon will be frustrated and that Rangers had done better business.

However, the Celtic boss accused Nicholas of being “negative about the club for years”.

“If we had signed Messi and Ronaldo, Charlie would have still found fault with it,” he said.