Yes, it is a distraction with the cup final at the weekend, but the Ange to Spurs rumour continues to gain traction.
In the argot of the Fourth Estate, the story now “has legs”.
Inevitably the Celtic support has reacted with a mixture of scorn and anguish.
Spurs are undoubtedly a managerial bin fire.
The owner Daniel Levy has a reputation for being capricious when it comes to the managers at his club.
Rather unsurprisingly, quite a few candidates have turned down the offer to manage the London outfit.
That said, Celtic’s Australian messiah would be entering the EPL promised land on life-changing money for him and his young family.
That is something that will factor in his decision-making process should Mr Levy come calling.
Today I was told by an excellently placed journalist in the London footie world that Celtic’s manager WOULD want to be allowed to speak to them.
Regarding their place in the scheme of things, Spurs have seemed damned to mid-table nothingness for an eternity.
If Ange does go, then any comparison with the departure of Brendan Rodgers is way off.
The man who claimed that he “was born into Celtic” discovered in the middle of a season that he had been adopted.
The term “left in the lurch” doesn’t come close to describing what he did in February 2019.
If a replacement is needed for Postecoglou, then the new person will have the biggest football budget in the SPFL by some margin.
Across the city, free agents are the order of the day.
As always with Sevco, follow follow the money.
I learned today of a touching interaction between Alfredo and the club chairman as the South America striker was packing his bags.
Apparently, the latter was highly impressed by the Colombian’s dedication lately to a rigorous fitness regime with a personal trainer.
He is actually leaving Sevco in reasonable shape for his next chapter as a futbolista.
Bien hecho, chico!
Moreover, I’m sure all those loyalty bonuses will be paid to the players who are leaving the eleven-year-old club.
Any further court cases would be terribly unfortunate.
If Ange does leave, the inevitable disruption will be a boon to Sevco and their work experience manager.
However, it will not alter the resource landscape between the place Fergus built and the stadium Mr John Brown played for.
That advantage is literally inbuilt.
Now, Bhoys, make mine a treble!
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While I understand if Ange leaves, I think the Celtic Board should be counter offering based on, paying him more, investing more in the squad for Europe, staying for three more years on a contrac and having three adventures in the Champions league. The EPL is fickle and Manchester City are likely to keep on winning with a few teams contesting second place. The EPL is kind of predictable. Man City win and most other managers except for two or three get sacked. I understand he’ll earn lots of money and be very high profile and all that said I think Celtic have a good case to counter offer. I think the man is torn between life changing money and life long adoration!
Vini, vidi, vici.
Not a Celtic (or Rangers) supporter here.
What is real success for Celtic? domestic league and qualification for knockout stages in Champions League?
Like it or not (I don’t) but EPL is the big cheese now. Spurs are an underachieving side with potential to make Champions League. Spurs will pay AP far more than Celtic and probably working with a better quality squad. Potential to make real impact with Spurs and even if he fails EPL managers tend to have a higher value for future jobs.
Sad fact of modern football life is he would be better to take this opportunity.
Whatever will be will be, Let’s get the treble tomorrow and celebrate. Since the millennium we’ve had seven managers one of them appointed twice. All of them except one, and another one who failed the second time around have had a certain amount of success.
Everybody seems to take it as a given these days that money is the overriding factor maybe it’s my age and I’m completely out of touch, but has job satisfaction went completely out of fashion.
If Ange decides to make the jump to the money rich circus of the EPL that’s his decision, and I hope he decides as soon as possible one way or another. We should then thank him for a couple of successful seasons and move on. Hopefully the Celtic board will bring in quite quickly a Manager who will continue our successes during most of the past 23 years.
In fairness, the one who failed the second time around did win five trophies out of five and win a difficult Europa League group with a game to spare, before failing.
I agree with your rub of your point, and that that manager ultimately failed (and also the implication, I think, that that manager isn’t a very good manager and was a very poor and lazy appointment). But, credit where it’s due. He was successful, until he wasn’t.
Ange has likely the chance to treble his salary with Spurs in the EPL.
Who could grudge him that?
Could he actually win something with them? That would be a huge leap of faith and will Kane hang about in the hope that Ange will lead them to the promised land?
let’s start at the end …. he will leave … there 2 things cause that in football management, success or failure …at the start the hun media had him down as a joke … since he started winning things … they been actively trying to move him on …. would any of us quit our current job for crypto style multiples … probably …anyway as much as it pains me to say it , winning trophy’s in Scotland, outside Scotland …means little, if he has the smarts he appears to have he will understand making progress in the CL with a team for a “smaller” league will resonate with prospect employers at bigger clubs more than a Scottish treble …none of us know but i would bet the meeting with DD was about getting a budget that he could make could make an impact on the CL with … i think if we back him in the summer transfer window he will stay fir a crack at the CL … for us it’s a win win .
Craig, I agree….but I think our board don’t wish to match Postecoglous ambitions…..so he is off.
you may well be right … this is a pivotal moment for our club … if they don’t back him with at least CCV and Jota type buys then it means the boards ambition extends to Scotland ..but i’ll take the glass half full approach and hope the board see the opportunity to take Celtic forward in Europe …
I think the board know we won’t win in Europe, so don’t want the outlay to compete….which is very narrow sighted of them.
I would never expect to win in a season, but build a good squad for Europe and compete….get the bigger money or drop into uefa…..
Either way, that’s a step upwards.
Lawell and Desmond have previously stated their wish to have some firm of rangers in the.league.
Keeping us just above their level may ensure Scottish success, but nothing more…..and if we lose the odd one to them, we’ll…keeps them afloat a bit longer.
The board may confess to being celtic men….but they are always money men first
The balance of probability is he is leaving. In many respects, Spurs are ideal. They have an interfering CEO but they are in great financial health. AP is not going directly to the sportswashing elite. Not directly from the SPL. He does not want to join the relegation fodder. The Bs – Brighton, Brentford and to a lesser extent Bournemouth are successful. That leaves clubs like Villa and Tottenham. He has to ask what the CEO considers success to be. For Leicester mid-table was not good enough and they sacked a manager who had won the league with them. Seriously? What is success for Tottenham especially without Harry Kane, who is a quite extraordinary talent. AP should only go there if the CEO is prepared what he considers success.
Please correct me if I am wrong (I frequently am) but if Ange is on a rolling 12 month contract and, assuming he didn’t put notice in last summer, then we can still set whatever price we want to release him earlier than that IF Spurs want him and IF he wants to go.
If he does go, he goes with my gratitude and best wishes. He has been open about careers being short etc. not a two faced, fork tongued snake like BR.
QB
I ,too, have my sources…and I can confidently state…he’s staying.
My London based source expressed no opinion on whether or not Ange would accept the offer from Spurs.
Only that an offer WOULD be made and that the Celtic manager wanted to consider it.
Given that you are safely anonymous you can confidently state anything you like.
Unimpressive.
15 managers in EPL did not survive the year, and spurs are not in CL and may not be for few years…… very risky…. Will ange be happy winning nothing, and out of he fails by xmas?
I can see him going to in year or two, with 3 years CL and several trophies to a big EPL club…. Liverpool? As celtic managers can do that big a jump.
Epl is too competitive at the moment, even Southampton got 4-4 draw with liverpool on last day, when they already relegated!!!
Hope he stays few more years and builds a reputation, to jump to club that can win European trophies….. he can jump from celtic to many big european teams.
Levy never won anything in 20 years, and kane could leave next year on a free…..a loss of £100m player…. Spurs a toxic risk?
Erm…the backwater of Scottish football where you need to watch where you park your car or a world citty, tough choice…
For me, the badge pumping, getting the fans raise his name as they sing his song will be up there with BR if he jumps ship. Next concern is playing style & massive Japanese signings, r they all going to go?I rear we could be looking at roles reversed with that mob 2 years ago when he came in
Daniel Levy is the Peter Lawwell, as was and hopefully not as is, not the Dermot Desmond of Spurs.
“Regarding their place in the scheme of things, Spurs have seemed damned to mid-table nothingness for an eternity.”
Odd statement, as they’ve been in Europe continuously for past decade in a half, Champions League several times, including the Final in 2019.
Yes, they’ve not won any trophies for a long time but only a handful of clubs have!
Also considered the best run club financially in the EPL,and with a brand new stadium which was always going to mean being sensible with money,sure we of all supporters seen exactly that with Fergus . Ange took on a challenge with Celtic when we were a mess in a football sense,he may want a similar challenge with Spurs . It’s a very tempting job on offer. If he stays,he ll cement his status at Celtic forever .
I hear comments on Ange leaving because of the draw of the EPL and
life changing money for him and his family .
What if he leaves not ,Celtic but Scottish football .
For me Celtic football club is a fantastic fit for a MANager like Ange
Total autonomy of the football side and scope and time to fulfil his vision of his FOOTBALL philosophy.
No one could doubt his enthusiasm to deliver exactly that when he first arrived ,it was evident right from the off .
Let’s face it though ,every single part of his football philosophy has been undermined, discouraged and actively negated in this country .
All the positive habits he brought to our play and ALL within the laws of the game ,were eroded by fair means or foul .
Quick throw ins …opponents kick the ball away and ball boys removed.
Short corners …opponents encroaching without sanction.
Quick free kicks,…opponents kick the ball away or stand in front of taker without being booked .
High tempo press on the opposition defenders ….defenders falling over and free kicks given for slightest touch .
High press and quick recycling of the ball to tire the opposition out …VAR brought in 6 weeks early to totally destroy Anges biggest advantage by giving the opposition all the restbite they needed to stay in the game .
So when I read about how worried we should be regards the EPL coming calling the money he could make or the chance for him to ply his trade in the EPL comes way down my reasons as to why he would leave CELTIC FOOTBALL CLUB .
Hope he stays..but should he leave bye bye Hatate-kyogo and maybe jota.
Brilliant post FSTB.
You wouldn’t be shocked if an EPL vacancy came up this time next year.
If Ange hasn’t bought into what Celtic do then it will not be due to the ardent fervour of our fan base.
Of the green collar there is no doubt, but let us hope the white collar are as convincing.
I do hope he remains. Ange has brought a real feel good factor to the club. Between his press handlings and his diverse player recruitment, we really do project a modern, inclusive and aggressive football club. I’m into this!
Cheers bhoys.
I don’t know if Postecoglou will stay or go, by that I cannot make up my mind.
Tottenham is a hothouse for any manager.
No guarantee of success and no guarantee of European football at the top table.
I often hear you say the biggest budget, and I agree Phil…..however the biggest budget has to be loosed by the board who don’t like spending money.
Before anyone has a go, our outgoings, if I’m correct, were around 5 million more than came in for players etc, since Ange arrived.
It’s estimated we have made around 100 million over the same period.
Point is, in the time since Ange arrived, our business has been done fairly quickly with regards buying……players are identified and moves made early.
This transfer window coming up, and only mentions of players.
Was Desmonds visit to paradise about Ange wanting players …as he has stated…of the higher calibre ?…….and will the board reward Postecoglou by giving him the monies he needs.
Now that Lawell is back on the premises, will we now see a return to the biscuit tin mentality ?
Give the big man a fighting chance with monies to bring in those “next calibre players” and a contract as a reward for his work.
Two seasons and a double in the first with now potentially a treble in his second…..
If Postecoglou does go, it’s my opinion that he leaves because the boards ambitions do not match his.
It’s my opinion that if he goes, he’ll go because it’s an opportunity to manage a large club in the top league in the world for at least four times the salary that Celtic could even possibly afford to pay him.
Literally anybody would go if a hard offer was made. Anyone reading this would go.
The apparently awful state of Spurs is greatly exaggerated. Its football operation is not in a good place but it’s financially sound and so the football operation has the potential to improve enormously (at least back to the point where the club was two or three seasons ago when they were regularly in the top four and making an impression in Europe).
Ange will back himself to make those improvements. For what it’s worth, I would back him too. The situation is not wildly dissimilar to the ‘mess’ he took over at Celtic: poor football operations leading to an atmosphere of disquiet, but solid fundamentals underwriting it all.
Ange, as Phil says, has a young family. But he’s also not a particularly young man. He’s 57 and does not have a high-earning career behind him.
Again, I would seriously question anyone, at all, who’d claim that they wouldn’t take the job if offered.
Selfishly, I hope that no offer is forthcoming. But if one is made, he’ll surely go.
He’ll have my most sincere thanks and well wishes if he does, particularly if he delivers a very likely treble this weekend.
Celtic’s built-in advantages will remain, as Phil says. I sometimes think it’s important to say that Celtic’s advantage over Rangers is not necessarily such that Celtic will always win the league. It’s not akin to Celtic’s advantage over Motherwell, say. Rangers’ financial superiority over everyone else means that the league title will almost always be some manner of contest. This season, Rangers accrued a points total that would normally win the league. Celtic have fallen short of that total with all of their advantages many times in recent seasons. That even holds relatively, in all European leagues. The league winner is normally relatively advantaged, but they rarely get 92 points.
If you were predicting the next ten league campaigns, without a material shift at Ibrox, you could comfortably predict at least six Celtic titles. That’s something like the advantage.
Rangers’ recent league title wasn’t so much Leicester as it was Liverpool, who’s most recent title was secured against a much wealthier opponent.
Our material wealth, the built in advantage, was never used while that other mob were making their way up.
That’s down to the board.
Remember when they said we were 20 years ahead of them ?
Let’s be honest….they are going all out to win the league this season….
We must more than match.
That’s not entirely true though. While they were on their way up, we were paying Brendan Rodgers £2m per year, which is by far the most we’ve ever paid any manager. The year we were going for the ten, we had the most expensively assembled squad we’ve ever had. The board just behaved like fans: getting the Ireland captain in, because he’ll ‘get it’, ignoring the fact that he was completely unsuited to the style; not allowing players that wanted to leave out the door – which is ALWAYS a bad move, always. But it’s what the fans wanted, and the board just behaved like fans. Spending ludicrous amounts of money without any thoughts of coherence.
There were examples of the board holding back: McGinn and the other targets in the summer of 2018. But there was an element of the unfortunate there. Hibs wanted £3m for a player that no one else was interested in. That’s a definition of a player that’s not worth £3m. Villa were bought over and came in with the offer out of the blue. Lawwell played that one badly, but he was unlucky too.
If Ange does decide on leaving this summer , our biggest worry will be how our “ Director of Football “ foresees next season , and will he allow again the same “ managed decline “ he did when appointing N Lennon ?