Ange Postecoglou has promised Celtic supporters a season of exciting football that gets them off their feet.
Postecoglou came face to face with fans for the first time at Celtic Park on Tuesday night. The new manager was delighted to get a warm reception, as you’d expect.
For the Greek-Australian, now fans are back through the turnstiles, it’s about entertainment and making people believe in him as a person.
He had a message for supporters on his media duties yesterday, as league broadcast partner Sky Sports hyped the new Scottish Premiership season.
Speaking on Sky Sports News [23/07, 12:15], Postecoglou said: “For our supporters, there’s a sort of double focus. First, just being able to get back into the ground and support their team. That’s probably what they’ve missed more than anything else and I think it probably affected the club and the players. Even 9,000 the other night was brilliant, they gave me a really warm welcome which was so exciting.
“After that, my message is that we’ll have a team that plays the kind of football, I hope, to ensure that they don’t sit down for 90 minutes and they get excited by what they see. Of course, we want to bring success. I want to win from day one as well. But there is a methodology there, the kind of football I want to play.
“It’s just about being disciplined and not getting too distracted by things that are out of my control and aren’t as vital for us hitting the ground running with performances and results.
“Whatever we’re trying to do, it will happen a lot quicker if people believe in me as a person, more than what I’m saying and what I propose.”
I’m a big fan of Postecoglou already. But even I’ll admit that this belief he talks about, on a mass scale, will only come with results. That’s just how it is at Celtic.
The pressure on the manager’s shoulders hasn’t gone away. There are pundits out there desperate to get stuck into him as soon as anything goes pear-shaped.
For us fans it’s about keeping the faith, listening to everything the manager says and going on a bit of a journey. There are going to be setbacks this season. They might even come early on. But if we want to build something with this manager, there may be choppy waters to navigate.
I’m up for it, so are many of you.
Hopefully, the manager can thrill us in the way he describes over the coming campaign.
In other news, Ange Postecoglou protects Vasilis Barkas ahead of Celtic vs West Ham.
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
