With the Celtic transfer business really starting to pick up the last few days, it seems now that Ange Postecoglou is starting to put his mark on the team.
With the signing of Kyogo Furuhashi, there is absolutely no doubt now that Postecoglou has the control of the purse strings and transfer targets as he starts to build a team to prepare not only for the league but the impending Champions League qualifiers coming up in the next 10 days.
The first leg of the qualifier’s against FC Midtjylland on Tuesday night leave Postecoglou with a selection headache of the worst kind and the team at A Celtic State of Mind laid the blame firmly at the door of the Celtic board.
Paul John Dykes and Russell Boyce were discussing the aftermath of the 1-0 home friendly defeat to Preston North End and in what was a brilliant and passionate episode, Dykes took aim at the board and said their 106 day trek to appoint a new manager may cost the club if they fail to win the league this season and qualify for the Champions League, “We are we really are in dire straits. When I spoke about a 60 million pound gamble people thought that was disrespectful to Ange Postecoglou.
“I meant the board had made that gamble. They made that gamble by failing to act last October, when it was clear to anybody who’s watching Celtic that we had to make a change.
“And they’ve made that gamble by putting all their eggs in a Eddie Howe basket, which we know and waiting for that for too long without any guarantee that we had something at the end of it.
“And they made that gamble by taking 106 days to appoint Ange Postecoglou.
“We really are at a situation where we’re really are that scene of Wallace and Gromit where the dog that’s on the train and he’s putting the train tracks down as the trains careering to the end of a cliff, that’s where we are right now.”
There was one quote that stuck in my head from Russell Boyce, “We are the luckiest club in the world“. And he is right.
Boyce pointed to how Celtic finished 25 points behind their rivals and have been given a great chance to qualify for the Champions League and how no other club in Europe has been given that opportunity after finishing so far behind the league winners.
And the Celtic board, with their dithering over Howe have risked that and more. I hope Postecoglou works some of that magic I have so often read and heard about and gets us there. I really do, but if he doesn’t. Don’t blame him. The suits slabbering over a balance sheet are the ones to point the finger at. Which is really ironic.