Klopp, Guardiola and Postecoglou – Making Plan A function better is the alternative to any plan B

There are some striking parallels this season between Ange Postecoglou, his playing philosophy and how it’s perceived, be it lauded or criticised, and the early stages of both Pep Guardiola’s early days with Manchester City and Jurgen Klopp’s embryonic beginnings with Liverpool.

When Celtic are winning there is fulsome praise for the possession-based football and high intensity exhibited by Postecoglou’s side. However, when Celtic face challenging games against better opponents, or limp over the line against a lesser light, there are inevitable complaints.

IMAGO / PA Images Celtic v Rangers – cinch Premiership – Celtic Park Celtic players react at full time after the cinch Premiership match at Celtic Par Sunday May 1, 2022. : Photo Jane Barlow

Calls for a big thump up the park to clear the lines – and relieve supporter anxiety – rather than play out from the back is commonplace at the game and in the commentary post-match. When Celtic struggle with injuries we question if players are being driven too hard or played too often when perhaps weary limbs hit the red zone – denying us the service of influential players.

Both Guardiola and Klopp suffered from the same complaints – players not rotated often enough and too many soft tissue injuries for it to be anything other than bodies over exerted being the cause, and goals coughed up as the alien concept of goalkeeper’s being asked to use their feet to play short passes to their full backs and central defenders as they are utilised as the first point of attack rather than simply the last line of defence.

Celtic are now at a similar stage. Against the smaller sides with less effective personnel Ange Postecoglou’s team are starting to dominate entirely, meanwhile playing against theRangers in Scotland or Bodo Glimt – amongst others – in Europe and the system is accused of being found out, and more industrial alternatives are offered as a way to cope with pressure from the opposition.

Ange Postecoglou will stick to his guns of course, we all know that by now, and thankfully so. After all, with football chock-full of statistical analysis the evidence is there in the numbers that this style of football over the course of a season produces considerably better returns than a hoof up the park and scrapping for possession, or even a mix of the two styles. And at the same time players forced through the physical limits of endurance soon bank the gains made in future campaigns, even if the initial exhaustion perhaps feels like all pain and too little gain.

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Of course, there remains an argument to say perhaps Celtic don’t necessarily have the players to play this style of football in every position, and there is merit in suggesting the likes of Starfelt, Carter-Vickers and Joe Hart do struggle to a certain extent. Are they comfortable being the first point of attack, do they trust themselves to make a pass quickly to a teammate tightly marked, and can they carry the ball and break the lines forcing the opposition to leave a man they are marking to deal with the ball carrier?

For now, in big games, that seems something of a challenge, but with Ange not changing, it will be a case of hard work on the training ground to improve technical weaknesses. And if that fails replacements will be sought, because the personnel will change long before the system does.

For Celtic making Plan A function better is the alternative to any plan B. That means players ahead of the defenders have to demand the ball, rotations have to be adhered too, and fitness and stamina has to improve. That is the way Celtic will improve rather than resorting to any ‘pragmatism’ as you often hear levelled at the manager, and as Klopp and Guardiola received in the early stages of their reigns.

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And there is a bigger picture here. At City Guardiola’s legacy will be no doubted counted by league titles, wonderful football and an incessant demand for incremental improvements in technical ability and athleticism. Klopp will leave behind trophies aplenty and the evidence that gung-ho attacking football can counter any team, even on occasion that of Guardiola’s. But the real legacy both these managers will leave behind and something Ange Postecoglou may well do too, is a long overdue sea change in attitudes to football at grass roots level.

Celtic are already making inroads from B-Team to the younger age groups where all players are taught to play the Ange Postecoglou way and soon you can expect that, if the Postecoglou way is successful, to seep into other clubs in Scotland, and from there into the youth levels everywhere.

That will be the true legacy of Guardiola in particular in England where from personal experience I can see the school team of my son’s primary school passing the ball from the back. Gone are the days to 20 outfield players chasing the call like a crisp packet caught in the wind of a school playground. Guardiola has changed how EPL football is played, but his influence is now felt even amongst seven-year-old kids learning the game.

If Postecoglou can have a similar impact on Scottish football the legacy he leaves behind will have a huge impact on how football is taught and in turn played in Scotland. The long-term benefits of that will be there for all to see as technically proficient footballers emerge from Scotland as they once did, and it’s not viewed simply as a cultural thing for young Spanish and Italian footballers to do things with a ball that Scottish players cannot.

For now, there are moments in games watching Celtic where the heart skips a beat, where you hark back to clearing the lines and hoping a big man can outmuscle two other big men and get you up the park. But Celtic will get there, much like Guardiola and Klopp did, and it won’t take long to do so.

To arrive at that destination it will take time, patience and a changing in attitudes of some, but it will happen. And when it does the legacy it leaves behind will be counted not only with memories of incredible football and the silverware gained, but also on the generations to follow being taught how to play the beautiful game as it was intended to be.

Niall J

About Author

As a Bellshill Bhoy I was taken to my first Celtic game in the summer of 1987. It was Billy McNeill’s return to Celtic Park as manager and Celtic lost 5-1 to Arsenal . I thought I was a jinx, I think my Grandfather might have thought the same. It was the finest gift anyone ever gave me when he walked me through Parkhead's gates.

2 Comments

  1. Well thought out, sensible and measured article. The rebuild, given the enormity of the task, will take time and we are only, as Ange states, at Stage 1. From this time last season to this is encouraging.
    Forward Celtic.

  2. To want to have a Plan B at all is like admitting Plan A isn’t that good.