Ange has earned board backing... and deserves new men in for Rangers
ANGE POSTECOGLOU has kept up his side of the bargain at Celtic. Win the first trophy of the season this afternoon and he will most definitely have exceeded expectations, considering he walked into the footballing equivalent of a blast zone.
That’s why the Parkhead board have to push as hard as humanly possible to fulfil his request to bolster the squad in time for the Old Firm derby on January 2 and get the Japanese trio of Daizen Maeda, Reo Hatate and Yosuke Ideguchi in the door.
If Postecoglou has shown he has the ambition and the ability to remain in position for the foreseeable, it is time those above him in the power structure started offering conclusive evidence they are fit for purpose too.
Because, right now, it is hard to have faith in them. All those in the directors’ box have been at the club for years. Not content with failing spectacularly to use Celtic’s large, long-term advantages in terms of money and infrastructure to build a team capable of being something other than bottom-feeders in Europe, they somehow contrived to blow the domestic league last season, too, and turn the dream of ‘10-In-A-Row’ from an open goal into an open wound.
Yet, they carry on regardless. Peter Lawwell left as chief executive to make way for the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reign of the long-forgotten and not-to-be-mentioned Dominic McKay. Now that’s over, things seem terribly familiar.
Former company secretary Michael Nicholson is acting CEO. Ian Bankier, inexplicably, hangs on as chairman, pointing the finger at everyone from Nicola Sturgeon to referees and playing away on his violin amid the rubble of a fallen empire.
Dermot Desmond still doesn’t turn up for annual general meetings or engage with the club’s support. Although he does, at least, send his boy along these days.
Below them, it’s the same old faces. No new blood. No new ideas, by the looks of it, either. There is still no head of recruitment. All that talk earlier in the year of a sporting director has come to nothing.
Postecoglou couldn’t even bring his own people in, lumbered with John Kennedy and Gavin Strachan and others left over from what was, unquestionably, the most disastrous campaign in the club’s modern history.
Look, the Greek-Australian still has a bit to prove himself. He has made clear mistakes during his time at the helm such as fielding Kyogo Furuhashi out wide in the first Old Firm derby and going with wantaway Odsonne Edouard through the middle.
Putting Giorgos Giakoumakis on penalties in a goalless draw at home to Livingston was confusing too. Sticking Furuhashi on the park in a dead-rubber with Real Betis and seeing him pick up an injury to leave the side with no fit strikers was simply nuts.
His insistence on pushing players to the wire in training is also raising eyebrows when placed against the number of muscle injuries his charges are suffering.
However, above all that is the fact he has reached a cup final and has his team within touching distance of defending champions Rangers with a home derby to come before the winter break.
Not bad, considering he entered his new job having to play Dane Murray and Stephen Welsh as his central-defensive partnership in a Champions League qualifier.
He has done enough to deserve further backing. To deserve more help. And getting the bodies he wants through the door in time for Rangers’ visit to Parkhead after new year is the very least that should be coming his way.
Because this Celtic side he cobbled together in breakneck fashion, hampered by injuries to important players, look in danger of running out of steam.
Yes, the nature of their hard-fought 97th-minute win at Ross County in midweek, hard on the heels of scraping past Motherwell at home, led to more of that gormless, hackneyed nonsense about struggling through games against comparatively impoverished opposition being the form of champions.
To anyone with any semblance of sense, though, it merely highlighted that their hopes of winning the title are hanging by a thread at a hectic — yet delicate — time of the season.
Back in those months when Steven Gerrard was still trying in vain to find a way out of Ibrox, Rangers looked vulnerable. They were there to be got at. The fact a flaky Hibs outfit who have since sacked their manager made this afternoon’s Premier Sports Cup final ahead of them speaks volumes about where Rangers were not so long ago.
Things have changed, however, since Giovanni van Bronckhorst took over the helm in Govan and placed the focus on ‘keeping the zero’. They seem to have rediscovered their focus. In essence, they don’t look like a side likely to drop much in the way of silly points from now until the end of the season.
That puts the onus on Celtic to make a point of pushing on. To make a real statement at the start of the transfer window.
Sure, there is more work than normal to be done on bringing in players from Japan. Visas are a headache, for one. Maybe even self-isolation periods. However, Maeda, Hatate and Ideguchi have been on the radar for some time and the J-League season ended two weeks ago.
Perhaps it would be unreasonable to pitch them in cold against Rangers in the starting line-up. However, even having them on the bench — particularly a proven goalscorer such as Maeda — would be a major boost.
Celtic’s three league games before the derby are St Mirren and St Johnstone away and Hibs at home. Three games they should win. However, even if it does play out that way, who’s to say there won’t be more in the way of injuries or suspensions?
Having these guys as options for the Rangers game is important. As Postecoglou said himself, just getting them in the door early and having time to work with them before football restarts, God willing, after the break means he doesn’t have to keep building his team on the hoof like he did in August and September.
Big Ange can’t be expected to win the Premiership given what he inherited. However, he has Celtic in the hunt at the halfway mark and ought to expect every assistance in trying to keep that going.
Postecoglou has done enough already to merit at least another season rebuilding Celtic. It’s time for those above him to come under the microscope.
The delivery of a proper, modern footballing department in the not-too-distant future would be nice. The delivery of new players, pronto, is absolutely essential.