Dermot Desmond made sure that Celtic was not going to be merely a career stepping stone for Ange Postecoglou before deciding to go along with Peter Lawwell’s recommendation and offering the Australian the opportunity to manage Celtic, after Eddie Howe had kept the two top Celtic decision makers waiting for around 100 days last spring before deciding against taking the Parkhead position.
Yesterday Dermot Desmond, speaking in a pre-recorded interview with Celtic TV confirmed that he dealt with this with Ange at the interview stage to ensure that the candidate knew that Celtic were looking for more than a manager who’d plans to simply pass through Celtic on his way to managing in a bigger European league.
Gerry McCulloch from Celtic TV was asking the clearly scripted and vetted questions – this was always going to be on the Irish billionaire’s terms – and started the conversation about Ange with this question:
At that stage, in terms of recruiting a new manager, there’s always an element of risk in a situation like that. There were some – many – who were sceptical when it became clear that Ange Postecoglou was the man you wanted. It’s fair to say those sceptics have now all been silenced. Can you take us back to the recruitment process and what led to Ange becoming Celtic manager?
And here is Dermot Desmond’s response:
“If you look at our history of recruiting managers over the last 22 years since 2000. In 2000, we had a bit of a coup at Celtic, which was not really public. We had a coup formed by Brian Quinn, Patrick Sheehy and myself, because we weren’t happy with the progress we were making at Celtic.
“So we decided that what we needed was a new chairman. Brian Quinn became chairman. We needed a new chief executive, subsequently that chief executive was identified by Tom Allison as Peter Lawwell. He came a little bit afterwards. And then I went about looking for a manager and I brought Martin O’Neill to the table.
“And since then, it’s been Peter and I delegated by the board to nominate the manager for Celtic. What Peter and I do on a continuous basis, we put five names on the list that we feel that could be a very good manager for Celtic.
“So we’ve always had a list of five and we’ve interviewed really more or less five. In this case, we had a list of five – Ange was on the list. I had no idea who Ange was. I couldn’t pronounce his name. Peter was insistent that he was a person that we should put on the list. He had a great, great record.
“We pursued another manager (Eddie Howe) which was public and he was excellent to deal with. A person of integrity, of ability. I couldn’t say enough good things about him. But unfortunately for personal reasons, he couldn’t go on with the position or take up the position. So that happened I remember I got a phone call at 12.30 on a Thursday and I made arrangements to speak with Ange at five o’clock, UK time, he was in Japan, to speak with me next morning.
“I should say in between that, I had looked up and acquired research, quite a bit about Ange and what he’d achieved, his type of personality. I watched that Craig Foster interview several times that showed he was a man of determination, integrity, passion, individualism, and he was a leader. A general.
“So I was very pleased to interview Ange and, I should add, I did meet, through my son Ross, his agents well before we even finished talking with the other candidate. I got a good lot of background to Ange as well.
“I had a long conversation with him and I’d no doubt he was the person for Celtic in every way. He is the only person, the only manager, ever and I’ll put on the record here that never said “what is my budget”, “can I bring X, Y and Z etc.” He said “I’ll evaluate everything when I get there – if the money is X, I’ll be satisfied with that”.
“So I was absolutely convinced he was the person. I said to him, as we all know Celtic is more than a club, it’s a passion. Why are you taking this job, because it can’t be a mercenary role?
“Will you come in here and take the money, using it as a stepping stone? Passing on and using Celtic as your career development rather than settling at a club that you feel that you want to intimately pursue and manage? So yeah, just great reply he said – in the words of The Proclaimers. I will walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 miles more to manage Celtic. I said ‘that’s our man’.”
Certainly since the 3-0 thrashing of theRangers on 2 February, which was watched around the World by a record breaking audience for a Glasgow Derby or Old Firm match, Ange Postecoglou is a name that will be appearing on similar short-lists that will be getting drawn up by various top clubs around Europe as the managerial merry-go-round continues to revolve.
So Dermot Desmond’s assurance that Ange is fully committed to Celtic for the long term was the best bit of information in that video interview released yesterday.
And Ange himself was speaking about his own position at Celtic, no doubt as a direct consequence of Dermot Desmond’s remarks. The Celtic manager said, as reported by Scottish Sun, that he’d no plans to speak to anyone at Celtic about his position at the club.
“The last thing I want to do is talk to the chairman or Dermot or anyone about my position,” Ange said. “As managers we just get on with it. Usually when you have to talk to people involved it’s because you’re worried about your position.
“I’m quite comfortable with the way things are going. I’m really happy and enjoying the role. I still have a hell of a lot to accomplish as we are at the first stage of the rebuild.
“Until they tap me on the shoulder and tell me the road is going elsewhere I will keep doing what I’m doing and be happy about it.”
With the League Cup already safely returned to the ‘Parkhead Trophy Room’ from it’s short stay up in Perth, last weekend Postecoglou’s side opened up a commanding six points advantage over theRangers in the Scottish Premiership with a 2-1 win at Ibrox and can increase that lead further today with a home win over St Johnstone.
Then the attention will turn to next Sunday’s Scottish Cup semi-final at Hampden against theRangers and inevitably talk will turn to a treble and matching what both Martin O’Neill and Brendan Rodgers did in their first seasons managing the club, winning a domestic treble.
On that Ange said: “That would always be good company in any situation. They’re great people, the both of them. From my perspective what’s important is we have to beat St Johnstone.
“If we don’t do that I will be having company with other people you’ve not mentioned, so I don’t think too far ahead. There are eight games to go. There’s no greater excitement than last week. We understand it’s the final stretch and we have to make sure we’re ready for every challenge.”
What all that looks like going forward as far as Ange Postecoglou’s personal ambitions in football management is concerned was also answered, perhaps indirectly in his Media Conference yesterday that was attended by representatives of the Celtic Fan Media.
I’m pretty certain it was James Forrest from The Celtic Blog who asked Ange about the progression of Bodo/ Glimt in the Europa Conference League since knocking out Celtic and with this question being asked – and all the other stuff going on yesterday after Dermot Desmond’s interview was released by the club – Ange perhaps shared his own long term ambitions for the club. And you’ll note that it is is also along similar lines to the pre-match team talk that was released last week from the League Cup final against Hibs back in December.
James Forrest from The Celtic Blog asked this question:
Bodo/Glimt beat Roma last night and now have one foot in the Europa Conference League semi-finals. They have a fraction of Celtic’s budget, but they’re clearly doing something very, very right. What can we learn from that and does their success story give you the confidence that we can replicate that sort of form in Europe next season?
And Ange’s answer where his ambitions are revealed was as follows:
“I don’t think that’s where our ambitions lay. They’ve done extremely well, as you said. I don’t buy into this budget stuff too much. I’ve charted my whole career on being able to achieve things without necessarily having all the resources.
“I don’t think that’s always the answers for everything. It certainly helps you in many cases, but our ambitions lie beyond what other clubs are doing. I’ve got no interest in it, to be honest. I don’t really care.
“What I want to see is us being the best we can be and we’ve got markers of things we’ve done in the past as a football club. That’s your reference point. Not any other club. We don’t have to be anyone else. We don’t have to follow anyone else. We don’t have to compare ourselves to anyone else. We are who we are. We’ve got historical references of how good we can be and the impact we can make, domestically and in Europe.
“That should always chart our course forward.”
Watch Ange’s Media Conference below…
