Ange Postecoglou yesterday outlined the plans that are being currently worked on to repeat the trick in the first few days of the winter transfer window by adding to the Celtic squad ahead of the second half of the season and hopefully to prepare for Champions League next time around.
The Celtic manager added Mark Lawwell to his team and while little to nothing has been heard about the son of the former CEO since he started, Ange is happy to give an insight into how he is going to prove a real asset for the club.
And of course Mark Lawwell was the man who got the ball rolling, recommending Ange to his dad with such enthusiasm that he then carried forward to case for appointing the Australian with Dermot Desmond.
After bringing in Daizen Maeda, Reo Hatate, Yosuke Ideguchi from Japan and Matt O’Riley from England’s League One in the January 2022 window it looks like pulling off a similar coup in 2023 is very much the Celtic target.
“It was really beneficial for us last year to do our business early in January,” Ange Postecoglou said yesterday, as reported by Daily Record. “That helped us in the back half of the season. We’re going to have to do something similar this January. We are well underway with our planning.
“Our strategy is already in place, and hopefully, it all comes together. We’re looking everywhere in terms of our recruitment.
“Mark Lawwell is in the building now, and the reason I brought him in is that he knows what I am looking for. The brief is to scour the world for that.
“The Japanese and Asian market is one I’m really familiar with and I still think there is value there for players, and I know how they would fit into what we do. We signed Alexandro Bernabei from Argentina, so South America is also an area we are looking at.
“With Mark now working and knowing how we do things, we know exactly what we’re looking for. There are some parameters financially we have to work with, but the key criteria is the kind of characters they are and how they conduct themselves. Whether they are from Europe, Asia, South America or Africa, we factor that into any player we bring in.”
