Ange Postecoglou has spoken a lot about Celtic’s exit from the Europa League since losing to Bayer Leverkusen on Thursday night. The main message coming through is about squad depth.
Postecoglou made a number of summer signings after arriving at the club in June, urgently filling holes in the squad that emerged after a disastrous 2020/21 campaign.
However, it’s abundantly clear that there is still lots of work to do in terms of bringing in personnel.
That was never more apparent than in Germany when the substitutes required to come into the game were nowhere near the level of starts such as Jota and Kyogo Furuhashi.
Postecoglou’s comments since then, for me, are a pretty direct message to the Celtic hierarchy that he will need substantial backing in the January transfer window.
He told Celtic TV immediately after the match for example: “Guys coming on didn’t have the impact we wanted because we had some opportunities to create something ourselves and our decision making wasn’t great and we allowed the pressure to build up on us.”
It’s a pretty clear indication he feels the squad as a whole needs to be stronger if we’re going to start bridging the gap in Europe. This is not just Celtic fans grumbling.
His comments this weekend are even more explicit about the upcoming transfer window, while also leaving a pretty cryptic teaser about the club’s ability to secure the deals he needs.
As quoted by The Daily Record, the Bhoys boss said: “There is no doubt. We are still just four or five months into building a team and it was never going to happen in one transfer window.
“We know that we need more depth and players in certain areas that I think can help us to bridge the gap. You look at the Leverkusen side and they have quality all the way through.
“What we want to do is be able to compete at that level and we need to continue to look to improve our squad and add depth so that we can compete in lots of competitions.”
When challenged by reporters that January is a notoriously difficult month to recruit in, Postecoglou simply stated: “Maybe… maybe not. Let’s just see.”
It should be made clear that Postecoglou has never publicly criticised the Celtic board. There was a period in the summer he sounded frustrated by the lack of speed it took to secure targets, but there were other factors involved in all of that, not least a global pandemic.
However, I do think he is sending out a reminder that the club needs to put its money where its mouth is if they truly want this project to succeed. Postecoglou needs to be backed, it’s as simple as that. Acting CEO Michael Nicholson and prominent shareholder Dermot Desmond have to take note.
If we can bring talents such as Reo Hatate and Daizen Maeda to the club in early January ahead of the Scottish Premiership restart, the second half of the season could be an exciting one for the Bhoys.
In other news, James McCarthy set for big Celtic opportunity after Ange update on his progress.
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