Ange Postecoglou

What more can be said about this guy? He's just so on the money every single time he speaks. Want him involved in Celtic in whatever capacity for the rest of his working life.

 

He’d be a proper First Minister

 

He is * outstanding

 

Ange Postecoglou delivered a witty response to picking up the SWFA manager of the year award.

The Hoops boss collected the gong on Sunday night ahead of Hearts' Robbie Neilson and Arbroath's * Campbell.


Postecoglou has enjoyed a brilliant debut season at Celtic, overseeing a huge transformation with the title all but secured.

But the Australian boss was written off by many after his appointment and Postecoglou referenced the doubters when asked about winning the award.

He said: "Going into it, there wasn't a huge deal of expectation in terms of success.

"Whether that was because of me and my own background or because of the ground we needed to make up.


I take great pride in it, but like I said on the night, I didn't get the one I was favourite for – sacked by Christmas."

Celtic will be crowned champions if they pick up a point against Dundee United tomorrow night.

All eyes will be on Tannadice and Postecoglou hopes it's a 'special night' for everyone connected with Celtic.




He said: "We are under no illusions, tomorrow we have an opportunity to make it a special night for the football club and our supporters. I am sure they will enjoy it.

"After last season's disappointments, not just the fact that we obviously didn't have success as a football club, they weren't able to feel part of it, they couldn't contribute as they weren't allowed in the stadiums (due to pandemic restrictions).

"This year everyone has put in maximum effort including our supporters.




Everything they had pent up from last year they have released this year in a positive way and I am sure everyone is looking forward to the last two games.

"Our role in that is to make sure we continue on with our good form and continue on from the football we played at the weekend and take that into tomorrow night and as I said, take the opportunity to make it a special night."

 

How many posts are you going to make about the manager’s weight you sad wee virgin? Get a new hobby you’re boring as *.

 

Ange takes me back to my youth discussing those posters, but a decade before him. I had posters of Denis Law and Geoff Hurst in my room.

I also played for S.M Hellas alongside Jimmy Daperis, younger brother of John Daperis, Ristic, and Kallinikos in goals.
Playing for that club made you part of a brotherhood.

 

nup not good enough

 

Quite possibly my favourite Celtic manager in my lifetime. A total gentleman who also commands total respect.

Up there with Martin O’Neill for me in that regard.

 

The culmination of Celtic’s remarkable renaissance for which he has been the outstanding driver may now be only 90 minutes away for Ange Postecoglou.

The Australian, though, considers that truly savouring the events of his first, stunning season in Scottish football may have to wait – even in the event of his team avoiding defeat at Tannadice to make arithmetically sure of a league title that has been on-stream for his revamped Celtic team for essentially more than a month. For the hosting by Dundee United, the 56-year-old is intent on retaining the laser focus that has so ably served him as he has restored his club to pre-eminence in the Scottish game. Yet he does dare allow himself to give a thought to what the desired outcome for his side on Tayside would mean.

“It’s an opportunity to create a special moment at this football club. We’re looking forward to it,” Postecoglou said. “I guess the key thing for us is to make sure we go there tomorrow night, play our football and continue on the form we’ve had over the past few months, and make sure we deliver.”

The personal accolades are coming thick and fast for Postecoglou. In the past week he has added the Scottish football writers’ manager of the year to the PFA Scotland award of the same name, and collected his fourth straight cinch Premiership manager of the month award with Celtic now unbeaten in 30 league games. Yet the daily demands preclude any great philosophical pondering. “No mate, because you guys keep hounding me, a million people want a piece of me, so I haven’t had a chance to do anything!” he said of taking everything in. “That’s part of my job though, so that’s fine. There will be a time for reflection and enjoyment once it’s done. The reality is that I enjoy every day of this job, I enjoy coming in here every day and working with the players and being manager of this football club. It’s not like I feel as if it’s a grind at any stage. In terms of the success, I’m very proud of the individual honours that I’ve won for this football club so far, but the real sort of joy I guess and satisfaction comes after it’s all done and dusted.”

His near-faultless Celtic stewardship is about to bring Postecoglou a sixth championship of 25 years coaching. The circumstances surrounding his two titles successes with South Melbourne, the two he earned for Brisbane Roar and the league triumph in Japan with Yokahama F Marinos three years ago are wholly different. He can’t say then whether flipping the tables on a Rangers that breezed the title by a 25-point winning margin would eclipse all such previous honours. “Again it’s probably a question I can best answer after it’s done, because the way I think about things is that my role at the moment is to prepare the team and make sure we play well on Wednesdat night,” said the Celtic manager. “How will I feel after? Well I know it’s been an enormous challenge this year, it’s one I’ve enjoyed. It’s probably only when it’s done and you reflect that I’ll be able to give a more honest answer on what it means for me.”




Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou has earmarked his squad’s return for pre-season in late June as the time by which he hopes to have completed his player recruitment for next season.

The Australian’s relatively late arrival last summer meant some of the crucial deals he struck as part of the 12 additions across that transfer window did not come until the September 1 deadline day. Now, with further important acquisitions being made in the January shut-down, he is seeking to get ahead of the game to ensure a full training block with the pool that the champions-in-waiting will take into the Champions League group stages - the reward for a title triumph they will rubber stamp if avoiding defeat away to Dundee United on Wednesday.

“The work has already started, we’re already planning and I’ve already had conversations with the club about the kind of players we want to identify and bring in,” said the Celtic manager. “Our priority is to try to get that done early so that come pre-season, with us hopefully winning the Premiership and getting straight into the group stage, we know we’ve got a really good opportunity in pre-season to work with the group of players without the pressure of competition. It would be great if we could have all the new players in by that time. Sometimes these things are taken out of your hands a little bit, but [that’s] our intent.”

The Celtic manager agrees it will be a huge plus not having to negotiate Champions League qualifiers in July, the Scottish title winners dropping straight into the group stages that begin in early September. “[With qualifiers] there’s so much uncertainty around it because even in terms of your recruitment, you don’t know if you’re recruiting for Champions League or not. You don’t know that until you go through the qualifiers, so there’s all these sort of unknowns, and usually at that time of year you have players coming in at all different times, particularly with internationals. You’re not really primed to perform, so it’s challenging. Not having that just allows you to map out a pre-season of certainty – in terms of friendly games and the kind of work we want to do – without worrying that we need to be at a good competitive level too early.”



ANGE POSTECOGLOU is looking to get his transfer business done early in the summer in order to make Celtic competitive in next season’s Champions League, saying that the competition represents the level he wants the club to be operating at.

Postecoglou was faced with a massive rebuilding job when he first arrived at Celtic last June, but has managed to knit together a squad who will officially confirm themselves as Scottish Premiership champions should they get at least a point from their trip to face Dundee United at Tannadice tonight.

The Celtic manager doesn’t expect anywhere near the same level of churn this time around, but wants to get the signings he desires over the line as quickly as possible so that his squad can take the next step in its development by being competitive in Europe’s premier competition.

“Yeah, most definitely,” Postecoglou said. “The work has already started, we’re already planning and I’ve already had conversations with the club about the kind of players we want to identify and bring into the club.

“Our priority is to try to get that done early so that come pre-season, with us hopefully winning the Premiership and getting straight into the group stage, we know we’ve got a really good opportunity in pre-season to work with the group of players without the pressure of competition.

“It would be great if we could have all the new players in by that time. Sometimes these things are taken out of your hands a little bit, but our intent is to try to get our business done early.

“We know what we need, we’ve already identified the areas we need to improve, so we’ve already started work on that.”

Postecoglou hopes that the experiences of going up against the likes of Real Betis and Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League this season will stand his men in good stead for what they will face in the Champions League.

“Well mate, it’s where we want the club to be,” he said. “We want the club to be at that level on a consistent basis, that’s our overall goal.

“If you’re in that rarefied air often enough then you gain the experience to also make an impact.

“That’s our challenge. It’s going to be exciting, it’s going to be very challenging, but what an opportunity for us as a football club to expose our players and our team against the very best in Europe.

“Hopefully the experience gives us the incentive to keep being at that level, and as I said, if we can stay consistently at that level then we will increase our chances of making an impact.”


IT is a rare occurrence that neither the manager of Celtic nor Rangers are approaching the summer with any fear of being handed their P45. Such are the mechanics of the Glasgow rivalry, success for one usually means failure for the other.

This year though both Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou and Rangers counterpart Giovanni Van Bronckhorst are almost untouchable, scoring highly in the approval ratings with their own corresponding set of supporters.

From Postecoglou’s perspective, his popularity with the Celtic fanbase has rarely been in doubt since the early days of his reign, and will only sky-rocket further if his team get the point they need this evening at Tannadice to officially seal a title win they seem to have been celebrating now for weeks.

But just because his job isn’t under threat doesn’t mean that Postecoglou isn’t under pressure. That pressure though comes from within, placing his own demands on himself to constantly strive to improve his team for the challenges ahead, despite the success he is enjoying at present.

“I still think we’re under pressure,” Postecoglou said.

“If we don’t win [tonight], and even if we draw…well this time that might be good enough, but we’re constantly under pressure.

“I don’t think that changes just because you’re sort of steering it in a certain direction.

“I had no doubt that should we have success this year, then this group would have to be back there again next year to produce.

“I’ve never seen that as pressure, but what you do want is hopefully to be creating a team and an environment where you are constantly improving and constantly raising the bar. If you do that then I guess people will assess that differently.

“The pressure comes I think if anyone feels you are standing still or not progressing at any stage.

“So, from my perspective, I think people have recognised that we have made massive ground this year, we’re constantly improving, and even at this late stage of the season we are still producing football that is making people sit up and take notice.”

Surely though these last couple of weeks have allowed Postecoglou to reflect upon his first season at Celtic, as his team have enjoyed a protracted lap of honour and he has done his own personal tour of Scotland’s football awards ceremonies?

“No mate, because you guys keep hounding me, a million people want a piece of me, so I haven’t had a chance to do anything!” he said.

“That’s part of my job though, so that’s fine. There will be a time for reflection and enjoyment once it’s done.

“The reality is that I enjoy every day of this job, I enjoy coming in here every day and working with the players and being manager of this football club. It’s not like I feel as if it’s a grind at any stage.

“In terms of the success, I’m very proud of the individual honours that I’ve won for this football club so far, but the real sort of joy I guess and satisfaction comes after it’s all done and dusted.”

The same goes when Postecoglou is asked to ponder where the achievement of winning the Premiership title this season ranks alongside his other career highlights.

“I haven’t thought about it, again it’s probably a question I can best answer after it’s done,” he said.

“Because the way I think about things is that my role at the moment is to prepare the team and make sure we play well [tonight].

“How will I feel after? Well I know it’s been an enormous challenge this year, it’s one I’ve enjoyed.

“It’s probably only when it’s done and you reflect that I’ll be able to give a more honest answer on what it means for me.”

In the short term then, all roads for Celtic lead to Tannadice this evening, and the opportunity to tee up an almighty title party at Celtic Park on Saturday where the Premiership trophy will be the guest of honour.

“It’s an opportunity to create a special moment at this football club,” Postecoglou said. “We’re looking forward to it.

“I guess the key thing for us is to make sure we go there [tonight], play our football and continue on the form we’ve had over the past few months. And make sure we deliver.”

 

Has there been any rumours of a new contract for him?

Should be tying him down to a 3/4 year deal as soon as possible.

 

Not for Champions League. He should definitely be looking for a move to Europe. I think his level would be about the EFL Championship/League 1 or going to Hearts/Hibs/Aberdeen. With the success of Atkinson and Devlin, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him rock up in the SPL.

He’s definitely got potential, just needs to get experience.

 

Tilio is a fabulous player but he's nothing like CalMac. He's a forward/winger for a start, more like Abada, except a lot more skilful. Has a shot on him too. Might be a chance through the Lawwell connection, but I suspect next stop for Tilio is a bigger club within the CFG. Good player though.

 

Bigger club than Celtic? I’d only say City themselves are bigger. If that is the move, it’ll only be a move to then be a money making boy, loaned all over Europe until they get an offer they are happy with.

 

He said within the city football group.. Probably sign for city and get loaned out for the rest of his career like arzani for example.

Edit* Just realized you said the exact same thing but I only reacted to the first 4 words and didnt read the rest before replying, my bad

 

Yeah, Celtic (in case you hadn't noticed) are not within the CFG.

I'd love to see Tilio at Celtic but would be very surprised, unless CFG think that Ange's presence would be good for the lad. He really is a fantastic player but will very rapidly be worth a lot of money. Celtic would only get him on a loan deal unless they were to offer overs ASAP.

I can't see that. There will be CL money but that will be better spent on some finished articles - maybe from Scandinavia, Eastern Europe or strong Asian leagues. Tilio is excellent but still learning. Mind you, he is a full Socceroo and rapidly becoming a fan favourite.

Tell ya what though... if Jota refused to sign, Tilio would be an outstanding (and slightly cheaper, right now) alternative.