Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou has opened up on his recruitment process during his first transfer window in charge at Parkhead last summer.
The 57-year-old arrived in Glasgow last June, and right from the off, he had plenty of work to do on the recruitment front.
After a disappointing campaign the season previous, the club was set to undergo a dramatic rebuild, which included 12 new additions during last summer’s transfer window.
Those new signings included the likes of Kyogo Furuhashi, Liel Abada and Joe Hart, who really hit the ground running at Celtic Park and quickly became popular figures around the club.
With the amount of recruitment needing to be complete by Postecoglou and his staff, there always seemed like a potential risk that not all new additions would work out.
The signing of Kyogo brought a lot of excitement amongst the Celtic support. However, from different aspects of Scottish Football, there were questions as to how he might fare in Scotland.
Those questions were quickly put to one side when the striker scored a hat-trick on his first home start for the club against Dundee and went on to score 20 goals in total across the campaign.
There was never a doubt in Postecoglou’s mind that the Japanese internationalist wouldn’t be a success here, and Ange recently revealed that he told the club as soon as he got the role that he wanted Kyogo in the door.
Speaking in an interview with Darrel Currie and Chris Sutton on the new Scottish Football podcast, Currie Club, the former Socceroos boss opened up on his thinking behind his recruitment process last summer.
He said [Currie Club – The Scottish Football Sessions]: “Kyogo was the least risk out of all of them. I was so confident about him; I’d watched him, even though I didn’t coach him and had coached against him. And my team, even the year we won the Championship, I remember taking with our players, and the defenders used to always say he’s the one player they couldn’t handle.
“It’s a really good standard in Japan. So, he was the least risk, and he’s the first one, as soon as I got the job, ‘I have to sign this guy’. So he was kind of the least risk.
“The risky ones for me were guys like Joe Hart Cameron Carter-Vickers and Jota, because there was different scenarios around all of them. How are they going to adapt? More to me was how are they going to adapt to life up here (in Scotland) playing for this football club.
“Because from what I had seen, the history of the club, some very good players with good pedigree had come up here and struggled.
“So, for me, that was going to be where the biggest risk lies. But, again, I had conversations with all of them. I had put really big stock into talking to people and particularly footballers. Just getting to understand where they are at motivation-wise.
“Ability, you kind of know. You watch them, you can see their strengths and so forth. But, what kind of people were they and I go with my gut on that.”
Ange Postecoglou got summer recruitment spot on and Celtic continue to benefit from that
It is fair to say that Ange Postecoglou got his recruitment last summer spot on by bringing top players like Kyogo from an untapped market to the club.
Celtic continue to feel the benefits of that success, lifting the Scottish Premiership and Premier Sports cup trophy last campaign, and have started the new season off in fine form, with key players from last year having a huge part to play.
Even more impressively, the Celtic manager has followed last summer’s transfer window up by having two further positive windows, adding quality touches to his squad.
After 12 months at the club, this squad is looking mightily impressive, with options to choose from all over the pitch, and that is all down to the top work conducted by Ange and those involved behind the scenes at the club.
In other news, Ange Postecoglou reacts after landing yet another award at Celtic.
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