Before I travelled to Celtic Park on Saturday, I watched the first half of the Bournemouth v Tottenham Hotspur game and was pleased to see Ange Postecoglou continue to prove his critics wrong as his Spurs side put on a superb showing.
Tottenham went on to secure the three points with a 2-0 victory, leaving them with seven points from three games played, co-incidentally exactly the same position that Brendan Rodgers finds himself in the Scottish Premiership after three games. And a stoppage time penalty for Aberdeen yesterday at St Mirren meant that after three games played every side in the league has now dropped points and Celtic remain top, ahead of St Mirren on goal difference.
We all know only too well the brilliant, exciting, attacking football that Ange Postecoglou likes his teams to play and he’s certainly stamped his style early doors on his Tottenham side.
Spurred on by getting a 45 minute fix of Angeball, I rocked up to Celtic Park and took my seat and was subjected to 98 minutes of the Rodgers alternative which will be served up this season, let’s call it Brendanball.
Yes, I know Ange has gone and Brendan has a different approach to tactics, but good heavens, it was a woeful painful watch on Saturday. The attacking fluency and worryingly the commitment from the players appeared to be missing, it was certainly less apparent than last season or the season before that. They struggled to even string a few passed together. It was as worrying as it was frustrating to watch.
Of course we have to give Brendan Rodgers time and I’m sure he’ll come good, but Saturday shows how spoiled we were the last couple of seasons.
Brendanball might not reach the heights of Angeball, but hopefully it will at least end up producing the same winning results, starting on Sunday. We can only hope.
Just an Ordinary Bhoy
Get over it he left for more money
I’m not remotely interested in Ange or his “Angeball”. His loyalty, like the rest of them, is non-existent. Celtic took him out of obscurity and gave him a platform to be successful on. All that was asked in return was a bit of success on the field and a reasonable few years of commitment from him to the managerial post. He fulfilled the first condition with aplomb, but dumped the club as soon as a bigger offer and a chance to increase the ego came calling. I’m not remotely interested in these false badge kissers who are in reality just mercenaries. If he’s successful at Tottenham when Klopp moves on then he’ll ditch the Lillywhites for the reds in a heartbeat, just as he did with Celtic.
I like football men of honour like Henrick Larsson. He could have gone to any club but chose to stay 7 years with Celtic out of gratitude and genuine love for the club. These others are not made of the same stuff.
The only loyalty where football is concerned is to be found amongst the supporters, if you are expecting loyalty from players or the people who run clubs you will be hard pressed to find it.
That’s the sad development of our time. It used to be different, so a lot is lost and most people don’t even realise it.
As a spurs fan, a good % Celtic fans interest in AP post managing them is nice to see.
The added coverage both from Celtic fans Aus fans and Aus media gives additional layers of perspective.
We may just be another stepping stone ourselves if he continues his trajectory but if that gives us some success then I don’t think we could begrudge him if the likes of Real come calling.
His no BS approach is very refreshing.
Ange owed us nothing. Yes, we took a gamble by appointing him from relative obscurity in Japan but we were rewarded for that with a full team rebuild, good football, a double and a treble. It would have been nice to see what he could have done with a third year but this is the reality of where we are. Football salaries have multiplied exponentially in the years since Larsson stayed with us for 7 years and we’re never going to be able to hold onto players and managers for that long. What we need instead is a cohesive plan at the club from the top down so we can replace managers like Ange with a similar profile without losing momentum and having to rebuild a squad every 2-3 years.
Henrik Larsson was on a wage comparable with players in the top European Clubs at the time, he also played in a Celtic Team that could challenge the best in Europe with regular CL games and reaching a European Cup Final. I remember reading at the time that only Man Utd had a bigger wage bill than Celtic in the UK. I’m not saying Larsson was not honourable but the goals ( pardon the pun) that a player wants to reach in football were being met by that Celtic Team.
Things have changed since Larsson graced Celtic Park and as a club we can’t offer players or managers the opportunities or wages that clubs outside Scotland can, money has taken over and ludicrous sums of money are on offer for bang average players never mind those at the top. Would Henrik have stayed as long as he did if he was playing at Celtic now? Would an offer of £150,000 and upwards per week have tempted him and would the opportunity of going into the CL with more than avoiding a humping as the aim been tempting ? Not dismissing Henrik in anyway but the game has moved on and the money players and Managers can earn has become crazy, I’d like to dream Henrik would have stayed if playing today but I’m not going to condemn others for leaving.
Not bothered about the style of play this early in the season, willing to give the manager a bit of time, then judge him on that. More of a concern is the attitude of some fans, three games in sitting top of the league and fans are saying the league is gone, we have no chance of winning it. Looking ahead to the game at ibrox some of the comments are unbelievable, some even saying a three nil loss would be acceptable, we are not playing well and confidence is low, but who do these fans think we are playing ? a Man City level team ? talk about people losing their minds, and their nerve. All things taken into account, there is far more pressure on our opponents to win this game, and their record of winning pressure games is abysmal, ours is the opposite, I believe we are more than capable of getting a result there, looking forward to it.
Again not a slight on Henrik but his last contract with Celtic was rumoured to be £40,000 per week that’s over £2 million per year with players like Sutton and Lennon picking up over 1.5 million ( £30000 per week), below are figures of the average EPL and old Ist Division Basic Salary.
2001 -02 £566,932, 2002 -03 £611,068, 2003 -04 £651,222, 2004 -05 £630,355, you get my point. the one thing I can’t understand is how we could afford wages of that magnitude back then but can’t now?
For all the praise DD and PL in particular get for the financial success of the Club in reality they haven’t grown the Club financially one iota, they’ve overall managed stagnation at best whilst down sizing wages etc.
In 2005 Celtic’s turnover was some £63 million adjusting that for 2023 gives a figure of just over £100 million, the following are adjusted for inflation – in 2007 it was £120 million, 2008 £111 million and 2009 £108 million, between 2010 and 2016 there was a massive downturn in turnover – £89 million,£72 million, £69 million, £99 million, £83 million, £66 million, £67 million, in no other business would PL have survived . In a nutshell the record £ 112 million for 2022 – 23 is less in real terms than in 2007, we are a selling Club who even in the inflated Markets for players today in addition to our CL income ( massively increased from 2007) can’t generate a turnover equal to our turnover in 2007, that’s where our real problems lie, financial geniuses my arse.
It should never be just about money, it should be about loyalty, honour, commitment and other virtues seemingly now lost to these people. If everything comes down to just money then we are seriously in trouble as a society. It would do all the wealth chasers good to remember that there are no pockets in a shroud and no luggage racks on a hearse. There should be so much more to life and business than just filthy lucre.
There must be a reason clubs do not start companies to generate extra income, are they bound by regulations of some sort. What is to stop Celtic from creating a property company, they have the money to buy flats, houses or land outright, the money from rents would easily cover the running of the company, with some profit. For instance if we had bought properties of the value of £5 million 25 years ago and still owned them, those assets would be worth a lot more.
Some people might argue old Peter was indeed a financial genius for managing to attain the salaries and money he did for himself on the turnover of the club during his time, others would call that something else of course.
Well, I’m of a generation in which loyalty and honour took precedence over ambition and personal gain. I see from comments here that we now live in a more superficial world where a 2-year contribution with lots of hollow badge kissing is deemed the norm. It’s not acceptable to me though, and never will be.
Postecoglu owed it to Celtic to stick around a bit longer, especially since his exploits in Europe previously had been abysmal and he owed on that front. Besides that, uprooting his wife and young sons every couple of years is not exactly the best way to raise a family. He was earning more than enough money at Celtic, far more per year than I could earn in 20 years of real work, but it’s never enough for the ambitious. Sadly, it’s one of many symptoms of the modern fast-paced world of mercenary indivilualism.
As for Celtic under Brendan Rodgers, I can’t help wondering if Peter Lawwell is trying to undermine him with a view to ending his second stint at the club prematurely. Maybe that’s a bit of paranoia, but it is said that bad blood exists between the two and that Lawwell did not want him back. It would certainly explain the seeming insanity of not buying in much-needed quality for the team months ago. I do not see this ending well unless Rodgers gets seriously big money this week to strengthen his starting 11. He also needs to get Kyogo back to playing off the last defender. This is where Kyogo does his best work, not halfway up the park in some Rodgers-imagined expansion of his game. That tactic raises serious questions about Rodgers’ tactical ability.