Ange Postecoglou's ruthless edge demonstrated by Juranovic comments; it's far from a Celtic negative

By John McGinley

March 3, 2023

Former Celtic defender Josip Juranovic has been the talk of the town today after he gave an interview to a number of Scottish mainstream outlets about his time at the Bhoys and eventual exit.

While you could construe it has had a rather negative framing from some outlets, Juranovic’s comments actually perfectly highlight a trait the supporters should enjoy about Ange Postecoglou – his ruthless streak.

Not that there was anything Juranovic particularly said that was wrong, either. He simply gave an account of how he sees the way his final couple of months at Celtic went.

Josip Juranovic gives his side of Celtic exit

The most illuminating comments were arguably the right-back noting his surprise that the Bhoys had signed a new right-back, Alistair Johnston, before he had really been ready to leave.

Juranovic told The Scotsman, amongst others: “It was a tough time to move way, but that’s life. I was a little bit sad Celtic didn’t try to keep me as a player there. But that is football. You can’t know your future.

“To be honest I was a little bit surprised because I was playing in the World Cup and preparing for my next game. Some of my friends called me and said they’d signed a new full-back, what’s your opinion about that? I was just putting it to the side and concentrating on the World Cup, as it’s the biggest stage in football and I wanted to perform well. In my mind I was thinking, we would have three full-backs and someone will be on the bench and someone in the stands with their family.

“I knew I would maybe not play two games in a row and maybe play the third one. I didn’t like some of that stuff – because of the national team. If you are not playing regularly for your club, you won’t get called up for the national team. That’s the main reason why I left.”

It’s unfortunate that it seems the Croatian felt slighted, but in honesty, the manager and the club simply did what they needed to in sourcing a potential replacement ahead of the window.

There’s a chance that Juranovic could well have left Celtic anyway and the last thing we would have wanted the club to do is scramble around in the last week of the window for a new player. Johnston could have even found himself another new side by that point.

It had become clear by the World Cup that Juranovic was potentially making a winter exit, so it was refreshingly proactive on the club’s part to take action. It’s the kind of thing that we haven’t seen from them in years past, particularly before Postecoglou arrived.

I am a big fan of Juranovic and remain so. I’m glad he’s finding early form in Germany. But all his comments today have shown is that Celtic are doing things the right way right now, even if some feelings are hurt along the way.

Postecoglou isn’t going to let things like that get in the way of delivering the success we all want from the club.

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