Postecoglou planning for a World Cup raid on Celts

ANGE POSTECOGLOU has revealed that he is working on a contingency transfer plan in case any of Celtic’s top stars are poached on the back of the winter World Cup in Qatar.

Barely a fortnight on from the closure of the summer transfer window, the manager admits the groundwork has already been laid for fresh recruitment in January.

Last season Postecoglou brought in Reo Hatate, Daizen Maeda and Matt O’Riley mid-term and those arrivals were key in helping Celtic secure the Premiership title.

The first two are certain to join Kyogo Furuhashi in the Japan squad for Qatar 2022 in November, while O’Riley is pushing for promotion from Denmark’s Under-21 squad.

Cameron Carter-Vickers and Josip Juranovic will feature for the USA and Croatia respectively, while Aaron Mooy will play for Australia. The

Celtic manager knows the unusual timing of the tournament will likely energise the January market and he has already identified targets in case his team is cherry-picked.

He said: ‘We will look to bring in players in January that hopefully insulates us in case any of our players are taken off our hands. That is a part of it. But we showed last year that we always want to stay ahead of the game anyway.

‘We had a look at last January and, without certainty and without being able to predict the future, we thought about certain positions.

‘We have already started planning this year and we have identified the targets that we need.

‘Mark (Lawwell, head of recruitment) knows how I look at things and we are planning for the next two, three, four windows and trying to project what we will need and potentially what gaps we may have.’

Postecoglou admits the timing of the tournament — shifted on account of the severe Middle Eastern heat — has thrown extra uncertainty on the second half of the season.

He continued: ‘This whole World Cup experience is going to be unusual for all of us. Every club manager will tell you the same — we just don’t know how it will play out.

‘Having been to one myself I know that it is a pretty intense environment. You are measuring yourself against the very best in the world when there are really high stakes in every game and usually afterwards you need a little bit of a break to come down from that sort of experience.

‘I think for everyone it will be a little bit different in terms of how they react. We have to make sure our planning around that is decent.

‘It is a great regret here that Scotland did not qualify but in some ways it saves us a headache because there are a few more players who might have been away.

‘The flip side of that is, having been to a World Cup, I know just how amazing an experience it is for players.

‘They usually come out of it feeling really good about themselves and ready to use the experience to be a better player. It is unique for everyone this year. We have to see how we respond to it.’