Malky Mackay has admitted that he’s been impressed by the Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou who has taken his old club back to the top of the Scottish Premiership after inheriting a shambles last summer. The Australian has turned around a 25 point deficit from the end of last season to take a healthy six points advantage going into the post split fixtures which get underway this weekend with theRangers travelling to Fir Park to take on Motherwell tomorrow and Celtic making the journey up the A9 to play Mackay’s Ross County side on Sunday afternoon.
And while a lead is one thing, Ange Postecoglou will know that getting his team over the line in the closing stages to win the title is the hardest part of all but as Mackay points out the Celtic manager has got experience of doing just that in both Australia and Japan. That will stand Ange in good store going into these highly pressurised final five matches, the Ross County manager believes.
“It will help hugely – he is someone who has been there, seen it, done it. That will help his players,” Mackay said yesterday as reported by Daily Record. “He’s probably still coming to the biggest pressured situation he’s been in, just from the fact of what that club is as an institution.
“And he is playing against an institution in terms of what last Sunday at Hampden looked like. He knows every day as he walks around wherever in Glasgow he lives – 10 times a day someone wants to shout over and say hello.
“It is different being at those two clubs, a different way of life. To actually be the main man, the guy who stands in those shoes… I spoke to someone about this the other day. It is one of the presentations I do on the pro-licence.
“Being a coach or a manager and actually understanding what it takes to be in those shoes. In that job, at that club? To stand in those shoes takes something not many people understand because of the pressures on you from fans, players, staff, board, and public. And it is the same at (the)Rangers,” Mackay noted.
That’s very interesting stuff from Big Malky and moving onto Sunday game he continued. “We’ve got Celtic this weekend, off the back of their semi-final defeat to (the)Rangers which means there is a wounded animal coming up here. By the same token, they are also realising their great rivals, the team they are vying for the league against, have just beaten them.
“They then have a huge Old Firm (sic) test the following week. It is going to be hard for them.”
Celtic will understand better the various scenarios at kick-off tomorrow after seeing how theRangers got on at Fir Park tomorrow and it should be noted that Motherwell have just as much incentive to win their match as does Ross County.
Mackay freely admits that he’s been impressed by Ange Postecoglou so far this season. “He is very focused and driven. He’s very respectful, I have to say, when I’ve met him and chatted. We don’t know each other but this season we’ve had a few texts. What I’m seeing is someone very driven, quietly confident in his own ability.
“From what I hear, he is quite quiet about the place but he has recruited very well. Clearly it is his recruitment. He has been in Japan and it is Japanese players who have come in, with two or three others.
“He clearly has a way he wants to play and has a body of work behind him as well. There is his Australian work and then he’s gone to Japan and got Japanese work.
“He’s been part of The City Group which brings something else with it and has had the confidence to walk into that cauldron there in Glasgow and, losing three of your first six of the season, anything can happen. That resilience under fire – any time I see his press conferences, even at the start of the season, it is nice and calm from him.
“He didn’t let it get to him too much and that’s because he’s an experienced manager and has been through a lot of it before.”
