Earlier this afternoon The Celtic Star attended the Celtic Media Conference which started with Greg Taylor speaking to to mainstream media and this site, representing the Celtic Fan media and then moved on to the Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou who was in fine form shooting down the rumours and the lies about Celtic being in for various players.
We asked Ange for an assessment of his first six months in charge at Celtic and also for a message for the support for the second half of the season. Then we asked him about the decent job Michael Nicholson ‘appears’ to be doing as CEO.
Jota – few weeks away probably ‘more likely’ rather than Monday. Nothing further on talks with Benfica, so this will roll until the summer, not likely to happen in January.
Take-away bullet-points points from today…
(Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
McGree – decided to look elsewhere – “which is fine” so NOT happening.
ALL other links with players LIES – total fabrication, fictitious, falsehoods – no other offers have been made by Celtic this month for anyone.
Unlikely anyone else coming in. Not 100% but nearly.
Stephen Welsh ‘going nowhere’ -rated highly, more room for development.
Photo: Steve Welsh
Leigh Griffiths’ looking at opportunities elsewhere’ – Ange Not involved with discussions but agrees with that.
Kenny – club scouted for a while, like what they’ve seen,
Ange approves of 5 subs change, even though he didn’t used to be in favour of it.
“We kind of had a clear idea about what we wanted to do in January and that was mainly focused around targets that I had identified early on, obviously the three lads we’ve got in,” Ange said. “We had some interest in others but to be fair a lot of it’s quite crazy to be honest. You can pretty much throw up any name now and pretty much lie, I’ve got to say, and no-one says anything.
“I can tell you there are no other offers out there, we haven’t spoken to anyone else. Riley McGree was somebody we had an interest in because of my association with him, obviously I know the player very well. After initial discussions he’s decided to look elsewhere, which is fine.
“But we have not spoken to one other player apart from the ones we’ve brought in, including Johnny Kenny. So all those other names are fictitious. get it, there’s a bit of value in associating our name with a player. That value’s with the agent probably and with the player, not with us.
“Unless something extraordinary comes along or something happens within the existing squad which means we need to move.
“As we speak right now there are no other offers or people I have spoken to, so the twenty names that come out tomorrow are all lies. Fabrications. Or people bored at home just Googling names and throwing them up there. Or agents trying to get a little more value for their clients.
“I can’t be any clearer than that. The one thing I won’t do is lie. There’s no-one else we’re talking to, there are no other offers, there’s no-one else I’m interested in as we sit here today. If that changes I’ll let you know.”
Outstanding stuff from Ange! Here’s the video…
