Free agent Aaron Mooy edges out PSG youngster Edouard Michut for now

It may seem a strange decision to choose between the 31-year-old in the twilight of their career and the up-and-coming PSG starlet, but according to Scottish Sun Football editor Derek McGregor that was the choice Ange Postecoglou made when picking Aaron Mooy over Edouard Michut.

My belief is that Ange Postecoglou had a choice between the potential of £2 million PSG youngster Edouard Michut and the proven pedigree of free agent Aaron Mooy, a player he knows and trusts. He’s gone for Mooy.

— Derek McGregor (@McGregorDerek) July 17, 2022

Of course, the fact Postecoglou ‘knows and trusts’ Mooy will certainly have played a part, but so too would may have recent events surrounding Michut’s decision to leave PSG perhaps being taken out his hands.

Christophe Galtier who replaced Mauricio Pochettino as PSG boss this summer had apparently let it be known Edouard Michut would be considered as youth player for the upcoming season, and for a player who had started to make his breakthrough to first team football under Pochettino that didn’t go down well. Michut in turn allegedly missed a team meeting the following day, and the next meeting he attended was one altogether more disciplinary in nature, after which Michut’s future, either as a youth prospect or as a first team player seemed to be decided.

For a manager who we know places a great deal on the character of his player as much as any ability with the ball at their feet, such question marks surrounding Michut may well have had an impact on which player Ange Postecoglou decided to stump for, particularly if, as McGregor states, Postecoglou was given the choice of one or the other.

Celtic appear a very tight knit group of players, most seem to buy into a team comes first ethic and the process the manager expects them to follow. If there were any doubts surrounding Michut being in anyway likely to be problematic in the dressing room, then perhaps it would make sense for Postecoglou to heed the warning signs and plump for a player he already knows, both in terms of his footballing ability but also how he is as a teammate.

There is no doubting Edouard Michut’s talents on the field and little question his ceiling is very high indeed, but if there was any doubt whatsoever that Michut may upset the dressing room equilibrium then the decision to go with Aaron Mooy makes a lot of sense. The manager after all knows what he’s getting with Aaron Mooy, perhaps in the case of Edouard Michut that was altogether less certain.

Niall J