Ange Postecoglou has yet again been named as the cinch Premiership Manager of the Month after a perfect start to the season winning all five league matches, scoring loads of goals and opening up a two points lead at the top of the league, looking down on theRangers.
Also in the news this afternoon is the release of details on the selections from Sky Sports for the five cinch Premiership matches that will be shown live in October and it will surprise no one to learn that Champions Celtic feature prominently, with three games featuring Ange Postecoglou’s side and two matches covering theRangers games.
First up is Celtic’s visit to Perth to play St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park on Saturday 8 October – this match will now kick-off at the earlier time of 12.30 pm. It’s the same scenario a few weeks later for Celtic’s trip to Tynecastle to face Hearts on Saturday 22 October. Again this game now has a new lunchtime kick-off time of 12.30 pm.
Then at the end of the month, Celtic’s trip to West Lothian to play David Martindale’s Livingston side at the Tony Macaroni has been pushed back to the Sunday and will now kick-off at 12 pm on 30 October. All Celtic fixture details can be found on the club’s official website.
For those who may be interested two games featuring theRangers are their trip Ediburgh to play Hearts on 1 October then the game against Motherwell on 16 October at Fir Park.
Incidentally, before all that, Celtic’s trip to Paisley to play St Mirren was also moved last week to allow for a Sky Sports live broadcast and that cinch Premiership game will now take place on Sunday 18 September at the Simple Digital Arena (Love Steet was a much better name, was it not?) with a 12 noon kick-off time.
Celtic’s run of games leading into that fixture in Paisley is theRangers at Celtic Park tomorrow, Real Madrid, again at Paradise on Tuesday night then it’s Livingston who are the visitors to Parkhead next Saturday before Ange Postecoglou, who was today named Manager of the Month for August (how many in a row is that now?), takes his side to Poland to face Ukrainian Champions Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League on Wednesday 14 September.
Speaking about today’s award the Celtic manager as usual deflected any credit coming his way in the direction of his staff. “It’s pleasing to receive this award again which, as ever, is received by us all as a wider team and recognises the collective efforts of the players and my backroom team,” Ange told the official Celtic website.
“We’ve worked hard in the early part of the season, delivering some excellent performances and really positive results, but we know we will need to maintain these really high levels to achieve what we want.’
“I would also like to thank our fans who, as ever, have been magnificent once again all month in supporting us.”
And on behalf of the sponsor Glen’s, Colin Matthews, CEO of the Loch Lomond Group, said: “This is shaping up to be another tremendous season in the Scottish Premiership and Celtic have posted an early warning to their rivals that they are determined to hold on to their Premiership title.
“Sunday’s outstanding performance against Dundee United, where they recorded their largest ever away victory in the league, capped a superb start to the season for Ange Postecoglou and his team, and our voting panel was clear that the award had to go Celtic’s way.
“With some outstanding Champions League fixtures to come over the next few months, the Celtic fans have really invested in the football their side are currently delivering under Ange Postecoglou and with a huge match to come against main title challengers, (the)Rangers at the weekend, they could not have hoped for a better start to the season.”
He’d better watch out with chat like that or he’ll find himself on the banned list.