Ange has job to do in Europe
If Rangers are a European revelation, Celtic have to deal with the fact they have become a European irrelevance.
Zadok The Priest will play again at Celtic Park on Champions League group stage nights next season.
An emotional reunion after a fiveyear separation for the fans from the level of competition they believe is their club’s natural habitat.
Celtic will need to assemble a level of squad that elevates them above what they have become – a club who went out of three different European competitions in one season.
Ange Postecoglou delivered a nice line when he received his Manager of the Year award at last Sunday’s PFA Scotland ceremony.
He said he was taken by the way people in the street told him which half of the Old Firm they supported before they told him their name.
It’s the fans’ way of only giving rank and ser ia l number du r ing interrogation.
Ange should try it with the Celtic boa rd unt i l they unlock extra funds.
Signing Jota and Cameron Ca r t er - Vickers on permanent deals will, for example, only mean Celtic are standing still because they were on the premises in the first place.
Ange shopped wisely, and prudently, to top the league table against all odds. Now he must lean on his employers so that he, and new head of recruitment Mark Lawwell, can avoid another season of European negativity.
If Lawwell junior is half as good as his old man was as chief executive at Celtic Park, he’ll do fine.
The table groaned under the weight of trophies when Peter ran the show. But he was made to look all-powerful because of the playing and managerial skills he recruited.
It went pear shaped last term but Postecoglou cleaned up the mess and attained folk hero status in the process. But domestic supremacy can’t be the full extent of Celtic’s ambition. Can it?
The ante has been upped by the team across the city. The response will be scrutinised by the people who put up their credentials for inspection when Ange is out for a walk.