Bodo shambles tells us Ange still has it all to prove at Celtic
‘When you look at our European campaign, ultimately, we haven’t succeeded, so that to me is the bottom line — irrespective of progress or improvement or learnings. At this football club, we should be making an impact in Europe and it’s my job to make sure we do.’
THE words of Ange Postecoglou in the immediate aftermath of Celtic’s latest in an ever-lengthening line of embarrassments abroad suggest he understands the full remit of a Parkhead manager. It is whether the Greek-Australian is capable of delivering on that which remains the question.
Postecoglou was always likely to be given a free pass this term, given the fact he spent his first few months in Glasgow scrambling around feverishly in the ashes of a club that had destroyed itself in a spectacular bonfire of hubris, laziness, insularity and shortsightedness.
That he has them three points ahead of Rangers in the Premiership with just 11 games to play is quite some achievement. However, despite his hero status within a fanbase that was ready to lynch pretty much everyone inside the building nine months ago, one thing is clear: the straight-talking 56-year-old still has to prove he is a long-term answer as head coach.
That sounds terribly harsh given the turnaround in fortunes he has overseen in the wake of the omnishambles allowed to hurtle merrily towards oblivion under Neil Lennon last season.
Yet, Celtic run a £50million wage bill for a reason. Contrary to the actions of the board in recent years, it cannot be purely with the aim of picking up domestic trinkets with no care for the club’s wider reputation in global football, which currently lies mangled and forgotten about at the bottom of a cliff somewhere north of the Arctic Circle.
‘It is crazy Celtic losing 5-1 to this village team over two games,’ texted a Danish contact just after Bodo/Glimt’s second goal against Postecoglou’s side in the knockout round playoff of the Conference League on Thursday. This is the same Danish contact who described the Midtjylland team who knocked Celtic out of the Champions League qualifiers in July as ‘the worst Midtjylland team in years’.
Still, at least he still pays attention to what is going on at Celtic. Most foreign observers now see them as an irrelevance. The way we look at once-great outfits such as Stade de Reims, Dukla Prague, MTK Budapest or Nottingham Forest.
As Postecoglou says, Celtic must be making an impact in Europe. The money they continue to spend on their footballing operation, alone, dictates that.
Just six years ago, then-manager Brendan Rodgers talked about making them a fixture in the latter stages of the Champions League. Major shareholder Dermot Desmond echoed his ambition.
So, what happened? Other than the myopic obsession with winning 10 in a row, which ended in disaster too.
Look, football is constantly evolving, the gap between the haves and have-nots expanding by the week. It is maybe no longer realistic for Celtic — or Rangers — to be targeting the last eight of UEFA’s premier competition.
However, the business end of the Europa League seems more than doable. The new, third-tier competition for those not good enough to cut it at that level? Well, Postecoglou was looking towards winning it and it certainly didn’t sound misguided.
Yet, here we are. His team didn’t even put a dent in it, KO’d from three European competitions in the same season. Bodo/Glimt joining Ferencvaros, Malmo, Midtyjlland, Maribor, Cluj and Sparta Prague’s reserves in the list of low-budget outfits to have turned them over of late.
They now haven’t won a knockout tie in UEFA competition for 18 years. It is a disgrace, really. Lord knows what Desmond makes of it. Given the fact he felt Lennon’s team from last season was every bit as good as the Martin O’Neill side which reached the 2003 UEFA Cup final, mind you, he probably thinks Postecoglou’s men would beat the Lisbon Lions.
Back when Desmond gave his last big, ludicrous interview — in
September of 2020 — he insisted that European football was ‘so important as a yardstick of our football progression’.
God knows where being taken apart by Midtjylland and Bodo/ Glimt leaves you then. Yes, much was made of the fact Bodo beat a weakened Roma 6-1 earlier this term. Less is said about the fact they were taken apart by Legia Warsaw in the Champions League qualifiers, lost most of their best players, have only a fraction of Celtic’s finances and are still in pre-season.
No one at Parkhead seems to care, though. Winning the league this season and making it into the Champions League proper is all that matters. Yet, it was the same last season when more humiliation in Europe was pretty much written off by Lennon and Co because ‘The 10’ hadn’t yet gone up in flames. It isn’t good enough. Europe really has to become that yardstick Desmond talked about. Say what you like about the mistakes Rangers have made at boardroom level, but doing well in Europe became an absolute priority there when Dave King took over — a key part of the future business plan — and that mentality has since delivered wins over Porto, Feyenoord and Galatasaray in the past four seasons along with this week’s exceptional dumping of Borussia Dortmund from the Europa League.
Such was the extent of Postecoglou’s rebuild that Europe was always likely to be something of a side issue this term.
Yet, there hasn’t been all that much other than a home win over Real Betis in a dead rubber to hang on to from his debut campaign at that level and there have to be doubts over whether he can adapt his style sufficiently to succeed there in future.
The goals lost in both legs against Bodo were poor. Celtic shipped 15 in six games in the Europa League group stage, the worst defensive record in the tournament. How they ever made it there, given the pummelling they received in Alkmaar in the qualifiers, remains a miracle to rival the fact Vasilis Barkas and Albian Ajeti are still taking a wage out of the place.
It plays well to the galleries, but Postecoglou’s swashbuckling ‘you score two and we’ll score three’ approach — which might be okay at home to a Dundee side managed by a soon-to-be pensioner in Mark McGhee — isn’t going to cut it against higher-level teams from the continent further down the line.
You can’t play that way against solid European opposition. ‘Angeball’ needs to adapt. Ange, himself, also needs to work on putting his own mark on the club — and his own people in it — after a season coaching with the likes of John Kennedy and Gavin Strachan.
He has done well. Really well. Yet, he has to do better. Europe must become a platform, a matter of high importance, for Celtic — particularly if they want to be in the minds of the influential when future talks about breakaway super leagues come round again, as they no doubt will.
It is encouraging that Postecoglou clearly recognises that. It is his ability to act on those words and make them reality that is going to be the acid test, though.
If he can’t, he is not, no matter what happens with this year’s domestic title, going to be the man to take Celtic to where they really need to be.