So the Ange Postecoglou to Celtic announcement appears to be imminent, albeit it comes with a bit of a catch.
The Scottish Sun reported last night that the Greek-Australian is due to be announced before Wednesday. Whether that timeline proves to be accurate or not remains to be seen, but there was something else just eye-catchy in the report.
The Sun claimed that Postecoglou may not arrive in the UK for another several weeks. This is despite the fact Celtic start their pre-season prep in the third week of June. It’s expected that Postecoglou will fly straight to the pre-season camp in Wales as opposed to coming to Scotland first and foremost.
That’s something that seemed unusual and certainly not ideal. After all, you want your manager in the door immediately and ready for the players’ return to pre-season training at Lennoxtown. That won’t be the case by the looks of things, but the truth is it’s no disaster.
What’s most important here is that the agreement is done and the announcement revealed to the public. When that happens, that’s when the real work can start at Celtic Park.
Ange Postecoglou can finally put 100% focus on Celtic after his announcement
Firstly, the announcement will allow Postecoglou to cut his professional ties with Yokohama Marinos. This will allow him, even before he’s arrived at the club, to start outlining potential transfer targets for the summer. We likely already lost a power of work in this regard when the Eddie Howe talks broke down. The sooner Postecoglou gets to identifying who he wants, the better.
Secondly, it gives the players some genuine clarity. No, they likely won’t know anything about the new man. Outside of what they’ve read up on him and what info they’ve been given by the club, they’ll be as interested as the rest of us.
However, what it does is give us some direction. It allows players who aren’t sure of their futures who will finally be in charge. It will allow them to get a better feel of whether they want to commit to the club or not. Whether they like the look of what’s coming.
In addition to that, it also allows the football club to press on with other matters. The primary one being the potential appointment of a new Director of Football. It had been said several weeks ago that Dominic McKay was closing in on his new man [Daily Record]. Since then we haven’t heard a peep. When the new manager is in the door, this allows the club to get more important personnel in the door.
In the meantime, and I know it’s not ideal, Celtic will likely give John Kennedy and Gavin Strachan the keys to Lennoxtown. That’s not something to be overly concerned about. It’s not as if they’ll be in charge of any competitive matches. Granted, we can only hope the final say on both of their futures is in the hands of Postecoglou.
So even though the idea of the new manager not arriving for another few weeks isn’t ideal, it’s no massive disaster. It’ll finally allow us to tackle some of the major aspects of our rebuild.
In other news, a Socceroos great has outlined how Postecoglou will rebuild Celtic.
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