Ange Postecoglou

With the Mad * calling the shots, anything is possible. I guess the Greek connection may help but I doubt it !

 

Ange for me much better performances consistently, you felt under Ange we'd never lose a domestic game and probably win every single game home and away for about 18 months. Teams hardly troubled us at all and the odd times we never wrapped games up you always felt we would score in the end to win as it was near on total domination of entire games.

In Ange's first season we won by 4+ goals 7 times and then in his 2nd season done it 12 times.

In total 19 times in 113 games, under Rodgers been 16 times in 116 games since he returned.

Ange also got his football working really quick, he won his first 4 home League games a combined 17-0.

Those two games you mentioned Livingston and Dundee Utd even we had 37 shots, 14 on target and against us 9 shots 0 on target. Had 20 corners and 5 against us, an average of over 80% possession. Had absolutley no chance of losing really and were complete domination.

The Dundee Utd 1-0 was in the middle of a run of 17 games where we won 16 out of 17 with one draw. The Livingston game was in a run of 9 games where we won 8 out of 9.





They weren't even the best runs we went on under Ange either, in his 2nd season from the 5th of November till the 13th of May we won 23 out of 25 games, drawing the other two. Even from the 15th of October till 13th of May we won 27 out of 31 games, 3 draws and 1 single defeat was to Real Madrid away.

 

What's the point in winning games by 4 goals plus more frequently?

For me it boils down to the domestic records being very very similar but Rodgers has got us performing at a higher level in Europe.

 

I love Ange (certainly more than Rodgers); but I have to say in Rodgers' defence that Ange had way better backing than Rodgers did on 2 scores.

Firstly, not every. Single. Window. Under Ange was a 7-figure negative net spend. I'm not arguing that Ange was backed with amazing money or that he didn't face his fair share of heavy negative net spends and I'm not arguing that we don't need to make a hefty profit on player trading in some windows; but not every single one! Every single window under Rodgers has seen around £10 million pounds more quality leaving than arriving. That makes it very difficult for Rodgers to build up to anything and Ange didn't have to face that constant headwind. People might want to counter that Ange inherited a weaker squad than Rodgers, and he did; but people vastly overestimate how much weaker it was, because they seriously underestimate how much weaker the squad Rodgers inherited was than peak Ange.

Secondly, Ange actually got quite a lot of players he wanted. Obviously, a lot of that is due to his knowledge of the Asian market, which typically sells players at prices our board likes; but regardless of the reason, if you don't give a manager the players he needs, what chance does he have of building a team that plays his way? That first window was unbelievable: I genuinely don't believe a single one of those (mostly terrible) signings was someone Rodgers actually wanted.

Even in this restricted sense, we only backed Rodgers in one out of 5 windows (in the sense that for once, we actually got him some of the players he asked for) and he delivered major improvement in Europe in return. Note that even in that one "good" window, we didn't back him financially- giving him the usual (or obligatory?) 7-figure negative net spend that Rodgers always seems to get. Yes, there's a sense in which getting Engels was "backing" Rodgers for once; but who wouldn't rather have O'Riley, who we sold for more than double Engels' fee?

This stuff matters for the football. The football we were playing last season before we sold O'Riley is up there with anything I can remember at Celtic.

None of this is a slight on Ange. I think Ange is a fabulous manager and I'd love to see him back here. It's just to say that people judge Rodgers' teams too harshly, given the circumstances he built them under.