Ange Postecoglou, despite having had no previous association with Celtic until he was contacted last May as the preferred candidate to replace Neil Lennon as manager after Eddie Howe decided against taking the job, really understands what Celtic is all about. Former managers like Willie Maley, James McGrory, Jock Stein, Billy McNeill, Davie Hay and Tommy Burns all certainly understood Celtic’s roots, the reason the club was formed in the first place and the importance of the founding principles that has remained consistent throughout the club’s history.
Postecoglou has spoken about his family moving to Australia for Greece and being part of an immigrant community in Melbourne from a very young age. He is an intelligent man and sees the similarities from his families own experiences in Australia with the Celtic story in Glasgow for the Irish Catholic community arriving, surviving and ultimately thriving in what was often a hostile environment. Indeed even today it still is on many regards.
Ange’s own life experience in his early years and as a young adult clearly has had an impact on the way he operates as a football manager, and he’s talked about the role of his father in all of this often. Today in an article in the Australian media outlet Keepup.com Postecoglou likens Celtic to his boyhood club South Melbourne.
Celtic is making the headlines in Australia and also in Japan – and that is only going to increase with our three January arrivals from the J-League – and it’s great that it’s not only the football on the park, such as last month’s league Cup win over Hibs at Hampden, but also the club’s founding principles that’s being written about. The Keepup quotes are taken from an earlier interview Ange gave to Sky Sports.
“I’m well aware of Celtic’s background. I love the fact that it was built in a similar sort of light to the club that helped us as a family in Australia – South Melbourne Hellas. So those kinds of things are really important to me.
“The world moves on pretty quickly these days, but I just think there are values and traditions that should be maintained for generations to come. I love that this football club still holds onto those very dearly.
“I never had clear goals and dreams. What I wanted to do even as a young boy was just experience the stuff I watched on telly from the other side of the world in the middle of the night.
“To be sitting in the tunnel before a game and listening to ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ before we walk out at Celtic Park, it’s very hard for me to put into words.”
The Australian website also report ion the stats comparisons from Celtic this season to last and there’s improvements across the board in the first six months of the season, despite the very difficult situation the manager faced when he arrived at the club with numerous players wanting away (Edouard, Ajer, Christie, Ntcham and others), the club’s legendary captain leaving to join Aberdeen and the support and Board not being on the best of terms (to say the least). Twelve new signings, working with the same coaches from last season, no director of football and almost straight away Postecoglou showed that he had what it takes to manage Celtic.
He was well warned about the Scottish media and the ‘Honest Mistakes’ situation unique to the Scottish game and he’s now had personal experience of all of that, having dealt with the former but so far keep9ing his powder dry on the latter. Here’s what Keepup have noted on the Celtic stats under Ange Postecoglou…
Celtic have an Expected Goals value of 57.8 this season, better than their xG (40.9) at this same stage last term.
There have also been increases in shots (370 to 436), passes (11,682 to 13,426) and a higher passing accuracy (86% to 88%), passes into the box (654 to 822), passes into the final third (1,457 to 1,518), sequences of 10 or more passes (315 to 397), while they have faced 27 fewer shots on goal (136) than they did at the corresponding point last campaign (163).
