Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou has stated that he isn’t worried about having to initiate another Paradise rebuild if his star players want to leave the club.
The Aussie arrived with Celtic’s squad depleted after a disastrous 2020-21 season, but Postecoglou assembled his side in just two transfer windows and led the club to a league and cup double last season.
After the club’s European season came to an end last month with just two points on their return to the Champions League, the 57-year-old responded to suggestions that some of Celtic’s star players might be looking for a lucrative move in the coming windows.
As reported by The Daily Record, he said: ”It is an opportunity. If our players do well and move on to so-called greener pastures, if that is what they want, then there is an opportunity for me to improve the team.
“Because, if they are going to leave us, we are going to get some revenue in. I don’t fear losing our players. I see that as part of the process.
“If you look at clubs who do well at Champions League level that are our size, what do they do? They develop players, sell them on and replace them with better versions, hopefully. That is where our growth lies. It is part of the process. I don’t fear that. That has to happen for us to grow. We need to be bringing money in to be able to keep bringing better players to our football club.”
Postecoglou also rebuked the idea that Celtic overspend given the financial disparity between themselves and the rest of the Scottish Premiership.
He said “There have been a couple of managers talking about the fact that we spend a lot of money in the transfer market, but we have 60,000 people coming to our games every week. They don’t expect their money to be put in my pocket and just sit in the bank somewhere.
“My responsibility is to make sure that their hard-earned gets invested wisely so that they can be proud of their football teams. That is a responsibility. From the outside sometimes people think: Ah, just spend money. But there is a massive responsibility there.”
Postecoglou’s confidence in his ability to account for wantaway stars will be little surprise to any Celtic fan, and the Aussie has always insisted that he’s only interested in keeping players who actively invested in the project.
Interest in Celtic’s players is inevitable given the success of the last 18 months, and the World Cup will represent another chance for interested buyers to run the rule over a couple of key stars ahead of the January transfer window.
However, Postecoglou remains as unflappable as ever and that’s unlikely to change even if there’s a squad turnaround due at the end of the season, and continued Champions League participation in the coming years will only see the level of Celtic’s squad continue to rise.
In other news: Celtic star Kyogo speaks after astonishing Japan World Cup snub
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