Ahead of Celtic’s great result yesterday at Fir Park, manager Ange Postecoglou revealed there is work going on behind the scenes at Celtic Park as his footballing philosophy is imprinted on the club slowly but surely.
In the midst of a fast and ferocious appointment, Ange unfortunately suffered from a lack of preparation time when moving to Paradise. As a result, his plans could not be implemented to the standard he liked straight off the bat. With a full new squad needing assembled, the former Australia boss has had his hands full since he walked through those hallowed doors at Parkhead.
Now though, Postecoglou says that we are making headway after a somewhat brusque begining. He said: “Anyone who takes a bird’s-eye view of what has happened will see that there has been a major and structural rebuild on and off the pitch, as stated at Friday’s Mainstream media conference, see below. The starting XI from 12 months ago will be almost unrecognisable to what it will be on Tuesday. But that’s the opportunity, to build something new that will be exciting for our fans and hopefully bring success to the club.”
The boss insists the recent international break allowed him to concentrate on backroom staff – as he is looking to add to Anton McElhone’s appointment – whilst also putting plans in place for the January transfer window. He said: “The break has allowed me to maybe look further ahead, which is important. You can rightly become focused on the here and now when you’ve matches twice a week.”
“But without any games I was able to sit down with (interim chief executive) Michael Nicholson and look at what we need to do in terms of the football department. In terms of January, we started putting some plans in place.”
“That’s the bit you feel uneasy about when you are in the middle of a big rebuild yet your focus needs to be on the games at hand. So having those two weeks where we could look ahead a little bit has been important.”
Delighted with the recent appointment to Head of Sports Science, Ange admits that it was badly needed and that recruitment and scouting are next on the agenda. He added: “We added Anton McElhone to our sports science department which has been fantastic. The support he has given to the medical and sports science department has been badly needed.”
“So having Anton in has been brilliant and now we are looking at other areas, especially around scouting and recruiting. We need people in there with the right expertise and who are the right fit for the club. We are planning towards that. We are not rushing to decisions because these people will be crucial to what we are trying to build.”
News that the boss is hands-on in the reshuffle behind the curtain at Celtic is most welcome. Having said that, a reshuffle does not mean the same thing as a restructure which is what we all know now to be what is holding Celtic back. We can only hope Ange is assertive enough in his demands of the PLC and new CEO Michael Nicholson. Alas, an update is always better than no communication at all.
Let’s hope we are privy to more is the future…
Paul Gillespie
