Celtic great John Hartson believes Ange Postecoglou’s next goal regardless of whether he secures the league title will be to bolster the club’s reputation in Europe once again.
The Hoops boss has impressed everyone with a fine debut campaign at Parkhead so far. We already have our hands on the League Cup whilst we’re 3 points clear at the of the Premiership. A potential treble is starting to look like a real possibility.
Ange also did well to send Celtic into the Europa League group stages. However, a failure to qualify for the last-32 was followed by a timid Europa Conference League defeat to Bodo/Glimt.
And Hartson believes that, despite the fact Celtic won 3 of their 6 UEL group stage games, progression on the continent will be a big goal of Ange’s next term.
As quoted by Football Scotland, Hartson said: “The likes of Jota and Abada. Their numbers are frightening. The defence has one or two frailties but in general they’ve improved by keeping clean sheets. I can remember doing a gig at the start of the season with a couple of players and we were all thinking transition. I said it might take two years because Rangers were that strong and Celtic were that far behind.
“They lost their best striker in Edouard, their best defender in Ajer and lost their captain. Peter Lawwell had said he was going to retire. The whole club needed someone to come in get it spot on and unite everyone again and they’ve done that with the football they’ve played. It’s the Celtic way.
“For me, I just think they’ve had an exceptional season. They won the first trophy. They need to improve a lot in Europe, that will be the key for Ange next season.”
Celtic showed promising signs in Europe, but Hoops nowhere near the finished article
In fairness to Celtic, you can’t say we were totally wasteful in Europe. People are forgetting that we dismantled Jablonec and overcame AZ Alkmaar just to get into the UEL in the first place.
We then went on to beat Real Betis and Ferencvaros [x2]. In away games to Betis and Bayer Leverkusen, we only lost by 1 goal and netted 5 in total. Considering we’re only into the early stages of Ange’s reign at Celtic Park, that’s a heck of an achievement even if we didn’t qualify in the end.
Yes, it all ended disappointingly against Bodo/Glimt and in a competition we felt we had a chance of going deep in. But that was the only real blotch on Postecoglou’s European run with the Hoops. And no, we’re not counting the abomination against Midtjylland when he went into both games with his hands totally tied.
But it’s also worth remembering we’re nowhere near the finished article. Even if we secure the title there will be major improvements Ange wants to make to ensure the Hoops perform to an even higher standard next season.
Success in Europe will be a big part of that. That’s effectively what this club was built upon. As much as the Premiership title took primary importance this season, European progress is still a major goal for the club.
And make no mistake, fans will expect some improvement next term.
In other news, The brilliant half-time message Ange gave Celtic players that totally killed off Livingston
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