At a forum with Celtic supporters last season, Ange Postecoglou was asked what the club could do to retain the services of their manager for a lengthy period of time. Within months of his appointment, the Australian, quite clearly, was revered.
Postecoglou’s reply echoed the intensity that exists within Scottish football, and Glasgow especially. He articulated how he had spent a coaching career longing for this kind of environment. A deep understanding and acceptance of this domain, allied to the demands which come with it, partly explain why Postecoglou’s Celtic perform with such unrelenting intensity.
“I keep saying [to the players]: ‘Don’t waste a minute of it,’” Postecoglou recently said. “Why waste a minute of it? We are doing what we love, we are passionate about our football, we are playing for a special club. Why would you want to waste a game or waste a minute of that thinking about something else? Or thinking that maybe this isn’t what you want?”
Such comment conjures memories of the 2020-21 campaign, the clear outlier in Scotland’s recent domestic history, when a group of influential players decided they had spent quite enough time sampling the delights offered by Ross County and St Johnstone. Associated turmoil was the precursor to Postecoglou’s arrival.
“The memories that these guys will have through their time here, the memories they have created at this football club, you don’t want to waste a minute of it,” the manager added. “And this group doesn’t. Every day they come into training and train like they play. We are coming to the end of the season and you think some might be protecting themselves, but we have to pull back training at times because that’s how hard at it they are. They just embrace that and that’s who they want to be.”
The latest minute, the latest memory, involves successful and comfortable retention of Scotland’s top flight. As Rangers supporters cling to the hope that a summer overhaul at Ibrox will allow them to break the domestic mould next season, Celtic are pursuing loftier targets. Postecoglou should now have eyes fixed on making meaningful inroads when the Champions League returns. If Porto and Bruges can progress to the last 16 of European club football’s premier competition, so can Celtic.
Defeat to St Mirren in September is the only blemish on Celtic’s Premiership record. Recovery – plus, in fairness, Rangers’ woes – meant a 1-1 home draw with Motherwell on 22 April was basically irrelevant. Celtic have scored more than 100 goals. They should claim more than 100 points. They remain, by quite some distance, Scotland’s finest team.
There remains routine exaggeration about the supposed ridicule bestowed on Postecoglou when he arrived in Glasgow. “Ange who?” The reality is Celtic were, not unreasonably, criticised for a lengthy and ultimately wasted pursuit of Eddie Howe. Against the backdrop of supporter protests and the – temporary, as it transpired – shifting of domestic sands towards Rangers, it was perfectly fair to question the club’s strategy. Postecoglou, part of the City Football Group at Yokohama Marinos, had done enough in a varied and lengthy career to imply he knew what he was doing.
Still, not even the most optimistic of Celtic followers could have foreseen the scale of Ange’s revolution. His knowledge of the Japanese market offered Celtic a competitive edge. So, too, did the power vacuum within the club. Postecoglou is the master of all he surveys, with the instant level of rehabilitation he presided over meaning the board trust him implicitly with all player decisions. The scenario is akin to Alex Ferguson when at the peak of his powers in Manchester. Total control.
Celtic have no director of football because Postecoglou does not want one. Significant outlay last summer by Celtic’s standards of £12.5m for Jota and Cameron-Carter Vickers were rubber stamped because Postecoglou’s hit rate is so high. “I thought we were getting two very good footballers who would make us better than last year,” Postecoglou said. “Everyone was aligned with that.” Inside and outside the building, the 57-year-old commands immediate respect.
Celtic have an identifiable, high-octane style of playing. It is as effective as much as it pleases the eye. Inverted full-backs, the flooding of midfield, and a constant, three-pronged attack leaves opposition players bamboozled in respect of where the next threat is coming from.
Those who shrug at on-field glory in Scotland should instead look at Postecoglou’s smart business decisions. Of the team who started against Rangers in the Scottish Cup semi-final, more than half could be sold immediately for significant profit. The right-back position epitomises smart thinking; Josip Juranovic departed for Union Berlin in January, with the excellent Canadian Alistair Johnston already signed as a replacement. The profit from those deals was roughly £5m and it would be a shock if Johnston does not attract significant bids within the next two years. This is not all about chequebooks; Postecoglou has moved the game of Callum McGregor, Celtic’s captain, to a new level.
Postecoglou’s status among the supporters is God-like. He could launch a bid for the Rangers captain James Tavernier without significant dissent (Tavernier would not get into Celtic’s first XI anyway). Martin O’Neill sampled this hero worship, as did Brendan Rodgers. This carries lingering danger. Rodgers discovered the nastiness that can fly an individual’s way when they choose to leave Glasgow’s fevered football scene at timing of their own behest. It seems unlikely Postecoglou would follow Rodgers’ lead – Celtic have been as good for the Australian as vice versa – but the club must be careful that its entire football development is not intrinsically linked to a manager who has already received admiring glances from more appealing leagues. Celtic have suffered before through short-term, parochial thinking.
The likely timing of that departure is known to nobody other than Postecoglou. This is a manager who fist-pumps colleagues first thing in the morning and carries his breakfast back into the confines of his own office. He never sets foot in the players’ dressing room at their Lennoxtown training base. There should, however, be no harm in speculating on or, in Celtic’s case, planning for the inevitable. This is a consequence of success. Clubs who need a manager to reboot attitudes, a playing squad, tactics and a transfer vision will note Postecoglou’s body of work. Celtic should not be the end game for players or managers who aspire to be the best.
Postecoglou is not without fault. His European record is grim. An inability or unwillingness to provide a visible pathway for young players within a large-scale Celtic academy is a disappointment. The general weakness of the Scottish Premiership cannot be ignored; Rangers, a distant second at the time of the league’s 33-game split, were a staggering 26 points and 47 goals clear of third-place Aberdeen.
It is just that in the here and now, points of order will be dismissed as irrelevant. Celtic and Postecoglou remain a marriage made in heaven.
