Another fine morning beckons – a Beautiful Sunday for Celtic supporters – and as the dust settles on an historic sunny evening at Hampden yesterday the thoughts will now linger towards what the future holds for Ange Postecoglou.
Yes we won and it’s a great feeling. What we achieved yesterday was remarkable and will go down in the history books, but it’s only natural that we feel a tinge of sadness about the possible departure of our brilliant manager.
Judging by his body language it doesn’t look promising, the faces of Peter Lawwell, Dermot Desmond and Michael Nicholson didn’t do anything to ease our fears either. I hope I’m wrong, but like most Celtic supporters I’ve got that niggling feeling he is heading for the exit.
If he does indeed depart for a new challenge down south, it will be a huge blow to us but not a fatal one. We are a well run club and contingency plans will have no doubt have been drawn up to prepare for Ange’s possible departure. If the worse does happen, the appropriate word being If, it’s all of course wild speculation at the moment and we could all be wrong, he can go with his head held high.
READ THIS…Sandman’s Definitive Scottish Cup Final Ratings – Champions v Monster-Hiders
Ange has served us well, he has a great rapport with the supporters. He’s a straight talker who stands our corner, he’s in sync with us all, he gets what our club is all about. He certainly ain’t no Brendan Rodgers.
He has us all enjoying our football and of course most importantly he’s won us honours. Ange is arguably been our best manager since Martin O’Neill.
That’s what makes it all the more crushing if he departs, but we moved on when Martin O’Neill left, good players and managers come and go but the club will always be here. If Ange leaves he should leave with our best wishes, he deserves nothing less.
JustAnOrdinaryBhoy – follow on Twitter @ordinarybhoy
Well, Martin O’Neill took Celtic to the UEFA Cup final in 2003 while Ange failed pretty miserably to make the least impact in the Champions league group stages last year. So he’s not quite on the level of Martin O’neill.
It’s been a long, long time since Celtic had a manager who actually committed himself to the club and its success for any length of time. As soon as the big money guys come in from down south they’re off, and that stands for a number of players as well.
While winning trebles in Scotland is a great achievement, it’s hardly earth shattering. I don’t think Celtic will ever amount to anything other than a good domestic Scottish team so long as its managers and players are tempted away for bigger wages in so-called bigger leagues. Jock Stein was the last manager to know what loyalty and committment to Celtic was all about. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m not remotely satisfied with winning Old Firm derbies and grabbing a hopeful few bob from early group participation in European football. And I’m not remotely interested in managers and players who kiss the badge while using the club as a personal shop window. Just when the club seems to be gaining in momentum, they all move on to bigger things and we find ourselves back at square one. But then, there has never really been any ambition at Board level. Dermot Desmond is a businessman first and Celtic have a good knack of turning up managers and players who can be sold on for proffit. If Ange goes to Tottenham, I lose interest once and for all!
For someone who’s not “remotely interested” in all this, you’ve written a lot! Jock Stein was treated VERY badly by the club in the end, that’s what his loyalty earned him. The photo with him and Billy McNeill says it all; heart-broken!
Football is a business, and we’re a better immediate business proposition than feckin Spurs as we’re in the CL group stages, exactly where Ange has always wanted to be, so I think (hope) he stays .. for now. Bigger jobs will come up if he earns CL respect next season. Still a lot for him to do here before moving on to bigger and better than Spuds imho
He can absolutely go with his head high if he leaves now. It’s just a shame if he goes after just two years, but if he did turns Spurs down now he would probably never get the chance to have a crack at the English Premier League with a “top six team”.
Celtic will be fine. We operate in the Scottish football arena and that will always restrict what we can achieve, who we can attract and who we can retain.
It is what it is.
Why not? This wouldn’t be the last offer from a “top 6” EPL team, that’s nonsense! If Ange stays (& he’s only the “favourite” as far as Scottish media are concerned, Luis Enrique top choice according to other media outside our little bubble here of theRangers supporting media) and he continues to do what he set out to do .. make us a force to be reckoned with in Europe again, then he has written his own ticket for life. He’ll ALWAYS have top clubs all over the world thinking about him as manager as he’ll have a proven CL record, whereas now he can go to a shit-show perennial underachieving Spurs with a reknowned egotistical owner and no European football next season. Ange is a Liverpool fan, hope he holds out and builds his CV/ credentials with us until Klopp moves on (or Pep does, Ange was part of City Group & VERY well thought of already there). Remember it was only a month or so ago he told the hacks: “You lot might be surprised by how long I stay here.” He has brought in an entire team, some from as far away as Japan, I don’t think he’d leave them all that soon. Keep the faith .. until it’s a certainty, but he’s one of three named potential candidates, that’s all. He always has answered media questions the way he did yesterday, he always just stays in the moment and doesn’t think too far ahead. We’d all prefer he came out & said something, but he’s allowed to have talks with Spurs if he wants, but hopefully he sees they are a smaller club with a much smaller fanbase etc etc. My gut instinct is that he stays.