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Neil Lennon has insisted he could not care less if he cup-ties Aiden McGeady by playing the winger in Wednesday night's Champions League return leg against Braga.

McGeady is the subject of feverish transfer speculation, with Spartak Moscow having made a bid - reportedly £9.5million - for the Republic of Ireland international and Aston Villa and Tottenham also rumoured to be interested.

The 24-year-old made his first appearance since May on Saturday afternoon as Celtic scored twice in the final eight minutes to snatch a 2-2 draw in their Emirates Cup opener against Lyon.

Lennon had insisted he would field McGeady in the first leg of the Hoops' Champions League third qualifying round tie in Braga three days ago.

The midfielder's omission sparked rumours Celtic were trying to preserve his market value by ensuring he would not be cup-tied for the competition.

But Lennon insisted afterwards McGeady had been injured and today claimed cup-tying the player was the last thing on his mind as he seeks to overturn a 3-0 first-leg deficit.

"That's not my problem," he said. "I'm not even thinking about that."

Injury prevented McGeady playing any part in Celtic's pre-season until Saturday and he lasted just under an hour at Emirates Stadium.

"He looked a wee bit flat but that's understandable," said Lennon, whose side play hosts Arsenal in their final Emirates Cup match on Sunday.

"He's not had any football and we'll give him a run-out again tomorrow."

Lennon also played down an injury to captain Scott Brown, which saw the Scotland midfielder substituted on Saturday afternoon.

He said: "I think he just got a bang on the foot and obviously I took him off just to be on the safe side.

"We'll see how he is tomorrow but he should be okay."

Celtic have been linked with a move for St Etienne defender Yohan Benalouane, who is also reportedly on the radar of arch-rivals Rangers.

"I can't give you anything on that," said Lennon, who did all but confirm that his centre-back partnership for Wednesday's Braga game would be Glenn Loovens and Jos Hooiveld.

"I'll probably go for the two experienced ones more than anything else."

Lennon fielded a new-look defence on Saturday, which included a debut for 17-year-old Filip Twardzik, who was not part of the 22-man party which Celtic brought from Glasgow.

The youngster from the Czech Republic had been with the club's under-19 squad in Belgium but was drafted in to play on Saturday afternoon.

Lennon said: "He was fantastic. He just tired a wee bit towards the latter stages of the game but I was thrilled with him."

As in Braga on Wednesday night, Celtic defended poorly, falling 2-0 down to preventable goals from Michel Bastos and Harry Novillo.

But they created plenty of chances themselves and finally broke through late on before levelling at the death.

Lennon hopes this display proves to his players that they can compete at Champions League level, having held last season's semi-finalists.

He said: "We've got to take a lot of positives from today's performance, the chances we created, the way we pressed at times. The commitment was good.

"Obviously, the downside of that is we conceded two poor goals again from our point of view but you can't have everything.

"They know now they can play against top players and compete - and compete well."

Celtic's goals came from debutant Gary Hooper and substitute Georgios Samaras.

Lennon said of the new man: "His movement's very, very good. Even first half, some of the runs he was making, when the ball was in wide areas.

"We just need him to do it on a consistent basis and I think he'll score a lot of goals for us."