CUTTING TO THE CHASE
Postecoglou reflects on frantic start to life at Celtic but insists challenge was right up his street
BEFORE jumping into the Glasgow goldfish bowl, Ange Postecoglou endured a crash-course in claustrophobia. Recruited from Japan in the middle of a pandemic, Celtic’s new manager was required to quarantine upon arrival in the UK and immediately checked into a London hotel for a week’s isolation.
Those seven days cooped up in a sterile suite were used to lay the foundations of the Australian’s rebuild.
A series of phone conversations allowed him to determine which players would be happy to commit to his project long-term (Callum McGregor), those who were hell-bent on leaving as soon as possible (Kristoffer Ajer) and those who’d be happy to play their hearts out until their next career offer rolled in (Ryan Christie).
It also gave the 56-year-old time to absorb the magnitude of the task he had taken on. The collapse of the club’s ten-in-a-row bid had left morale at miniscule levels and yet the new man would be required to not only effect instant improvement but have Celtic challenging for honours immediately.
He wasn’t helped by the fact the club had wasted months waiting on Eddie Howe to commit to becoming Neil Lennon’s successor.
In Postecoglou, they were fortunate to have a back-up target willing to run towards the job and confront its challenges head-on.
‘I knew there was massive responsibility around the job and a fairly major rebuild needed,’ said Postecoglou, who will tonight be crowned the William Hill SFWA manager of the year in Glasgow.
‘I got my head round that pretty early. I had a week of isolation in the hotel room where I could exorcise all my demons and any doubts I had in terms of the enormity of it.
‘Once I got here, I didn’t have time to think about it too much. It becomes overwhelming if you think about everything you need to do.
‘I had no time to waste. I was brought in pretty late in the piece, so there wasn’t a time where I could sit back and take in the landscape of what we needed to do.
‘Even back in Japan I’d started mapping out the steps we needed to take. The blueprint was there but putting that into practice was going to be the challenging bit.
‘There was no doubt the beginning was going to be really rocky in one way or another. It was going to take time to embed the football style but I just had to stay disciplined through that to make sure I took every step I thought we needed to take to get to a position where we were going to be competitive this year.’
In that sense, it was important he got the buy-in of all the players at his immediate disposal.
Some, like Ajer, were simply impatient to move. Odsonne Edouard had also been hankering after a transfer to the English Premier League but showed enough interest to make himself useful to Postecoglou in the opening weeks of the campaign.
And then there was Christie. An unusual contract agreement had allowed the Scotland forward to drift into the final six months of his deal but he played out of his skin in the opening weeks of the campaign before moving to Bournemouth on deadline day.
‘I said to them let’s be up front and honest about this,’ recalls Postecoglou. ‘I told them I wasn’t going to take it personally because people want to leave.
‘These decisions were probably made a lot earlier and with all these guys, whether it was Kristoffer, Odsonne or Ryan, it was pretty clear they weren’t going to be part of the plans for this season.
‘I said to them that while they were with us I was going to use them as if they were part of the plans and that when the time came to go we would deal with it there and then. The tricky part was that I knew we wouldn’t get their replacements in before they had gone for the most part. So it was a juggling act.’
In terms of recruitment, Postecoglou’s absolute commitment to a front-foot, highpressing game immediately narrowed the field of suitable targets. Fresh from his successful time at Yokohama Marinos, he was certain Daizen Maeda would fit seamlessly into his plan but the Japanese international opted to see out the season before moving.
A £4.6million offer was sufficient to tempt Vissel Kobe into selling their star striker Kyogo Furuhashi and Postecoglou also sanctioned signing of the young Israeli winger Liel Abada from a list of potential signings compiled by the club’s scouting department.
‘In the early part, I was always going to be judged on the players I brought in,’ continues the manager. ‘We brought in Kyogo and Liel Abada and they hit the ground running, which helped me to be able to continue that process.’ By the close of the window Ajer, Edouard and Christie had all been sold, with Olivier Ntcham also released from his contract.
In their place came Cameron Carter-Vickers, Carl Starfelt, Josip Juranovic, Jota and Giorgos Giakoumakis. Not all were instant hits but each has been a valued contributor to the run that has brought the club to within touching distance of the title. January conscripts Maeda, Reo Hatate and Matt O’Riley have also hit the ground running with question marks hanging over only a few such as James McCarthy and Yosuke Ideguchi.
Normally such a high volume of signings would yield a few duds. So has Postecoglou surprised even himself with his strike-rate?
‘No .... and I don’t say that dismissively,’ he retorts. ‘It’s not an exact science and it’s not always about the money, there’s plenty of clubs around the world spend a hell of a lot and don’t get it right.
‘The reason I was confident was because it’s been part of my whole career. I had a clear idea of the kind of football we wanted to play and I am pretty good at identifying the type of players who will fit into my system, which means I can eliminate a lot.’
As easy on the eye as Kyogo, Jota and Abada may have been, results did not instantly follow.
Europe would provide a couple of chastening nights at the hands of Real Betis and Bayer Leverkusen but more concerning was the team’s league form in the early weeks of the campaign.
Tough shifts at Tynecastle, Ibrox and Almondvale are nothing new for Celtic but to play — and lose — at all three venues in the opening six games caused an issue.
‘We’d won three, lost three and drawn one out of the first seven,’ says Postecoglou. ‘My feeling assessing Rangers was that they were champions, undefeated last year, and I thought about how many games they would lose this year.
‘Apart from us, I didn’t think they were going to lose any other games. So I thought we had to be virtually perfect for the rest of this year to have any chance of competing.
‘If I had started thinking too far ahead it would have been
It is the first year of trying to build something that will be special
overwhelming so the strategy was to chip away at it a week at a time.’
A memorable night at Celtic Park saw Hatate score twice as Celtic defeated Rangers to go top and they have not looked back, winning again at Ibrox in April to extend their lead further.
Postecoglou won’t be at Celtic forever but while he concedes that he tends to be drawn to a new challenge before he gets comfortable in a job, he insists the point when he craves a new project is a long way off.
‘I have always felt the need to challenge myself,’ he explains.
‘Every time I have moved it’s not been because I’ve been unhappy or on edge, it’s more I have moved because I have felt the need to conquer something new and not be fearful of that.
‘I probably don’t coach my best if I get comfortable, I love that little bit of the unknown, it tends to bring out the best of me.
‘But I’m enjoying it at the moment. It’s the first year of trying to build something that will be special.’
With entry to the group stage of next season’s Champions League guaranteed for the Scottish champions, Postecoglou has a new adventure to look forward to and work is underway to source new recruits for next season.
‘If my competitive juices are flowing and I can see something special being built, I don’t get agitated about doing something else,’ he says. ‘I’ve always moved when I’ve felt I’ve accomplished something and hopefully in the next seven days we have some real fantastic success.
‘But the endgame was always to build a team people talk about long after I’m gone.’