Ange Postecoglou

We have a manager who's barely 3 months into a mammoth rebuild ffs

 

Some amount of * gimps in our support.

 

Ange said he will never change his philosophy, he will never change the system, he will continue to ask the fullbacks to jump into midfield, I've heard enough if that's the way he wants to continue

 

What's Ed O'Neill up to? if he has time I would take him!

 

We have to give the system a chance to work though. This is madness. * being our manager, honestly

 

How do you expect that kind of system to work in Europe against far superior teams? It'll never work at that level, it only works for the top teams with the top players which in the current financial climate we'll never be able to put together

 

It'll be hard making the system work as we don't have the necessary players for it to be successful. Ange must know this by now but this is down to our feeble, tight fisted ,short sighted tory * of a board. Hopefully we get the players in in January to make his system work and, although I'm * off with just how poor we are and where we are in the league, I am willing to support him and wait to see what happens after the January transfer window.

 

In Europe we'll get beat 9 times out of 10 against top teams regardless of the system. We've had one win against a top team in the past 14 years or so. We've struggled to beat the likes of Cluj and Copenhagen the past few years. Rodgers got hummed against the top teams (good draws against a early incarnation of Guardolia's Man City aside) and he's the best manager we'll have in a long long time.

Point is, I dont expect to be able to beat these teams whether we sit back or go all guns blazing. But you can't judge the system or Ange ability to learn and adapt in such a short period. He said he won't change his approach, but he's also said that he has developed that approach in the past. We can't expect overnight progress. Its insane.

And listen, I have my doubts over the system too. I dont love what I'm seeing but I'm willing to give it a reasonable period of time

 

It will be hard, but as you said we need to see what he can do with more tike and another transfer window or two behind him.

We need to remember we've lost the spine of our team the past year. This will take time regardless of the manager.

 

How long do you leave it though? I really want it to work (obviously) but if we keep getting beat or drawing.... when do you say change it? Even last year we had won more by this point. Barnes won more, Mowbray won more. Can't sack him yet but....pressure is really really on!

 

How long is a reasonable period of time, especially if domestic results don’t improve?

 

For me personally it has to be atleast until after January. Of course if we don't see any gradual improvements then most people won't be patient for him to last that long and I understand that's the way of things.

But realistically this season was always going to be a real transition and rebuilding season. Hardly anyone, including our fans gave us a chance at the league. As I said above, I have doubts over the system, but our squad is still in the middle of a rebuild, it'll take 2 more windows atleast to complete that, realistically. In that time we've had absolutely no luck woth injuries and our squad has been stretched whilst trying to learn a new system, and it's showed.

I'm hopeful we'll see an upturn in domestic form tho, European form on the other hand, I'm willing to give this season a bye if the domestic form picks up.

 

Fair enough mate. My views differ slightly. A win on Sunday and things will look a bit more positive.

 

I think a more pragmatic manager (on our budget possibly a Steve Clarke or Michael O'Neill) who set up their teams accordingly depending upon the opposition game to game is the smartest way to confront Europe in modern times given the player and budget disparities, coaches such as Clarke and O'Neill know when to set up their teams to be more expansive or be more compact, imo they're clever managers, obviously they don't get everything right, obviously they sometimes make strange decisions like every manager, not saying they're perfect but I still think they would do a lot more with the current squad than what Ange is doing with it so far.

Ange is balls to the wall every game regardless of the opposition, that way of playing will be exposed time and again against most teams in Europe imo, whereas the more pragmatic approach from a Clarke or O'Neill would wield better results more regularly than the way Ange is asking the team to play at that level imo.

Having said that, I personally thought the way Ange wants to play would work a treat domestically with highly entertaining high scoring games of football in our favor as we witnessed against Dundee & St Mirren, because I don't view domestic teams with the exception of Sevco being strong enough in attack to hurt us given I thought we would be out scoring them anyway playing that sort of system, but as early as we are into his reign, the Livingston and Dundee Utd performances/results in particular were concerning.

He may get it right domestically eventually, but I fear he'll never get it right in Europe. Beating Sevco, winning the league and getting results in Europe is where I gain most of my joy as a Celtic fan, if Ange isn't going to get it right in Europe, which I never believe he will with the way he wants to continue playing at that level, then I'd rather just move on, harsh as that seems.

 

I dont think what you've said there is unreasonable. You're not alone in wanting a pragmatic approach to these games. It makes sense. We've been frustrated alot of times against teams that sit in, but we usually find a way to beat them anyway. So I dont mind actually going balls to the wall for a couple of seasons in European and seeing how it turns out, provided the domestic form improves. If it clicks we'll definitely be hard to stop domestically but we need time and more bodies for that and personally im willing to give that.

You could be proven right though

 

The thing for me though is one out of 4 goals was down to tactics for me, the others were down to personal mistakes. Or plain bad luck in the case of the penalty. The ones that we were too open and Hart bailed us out was when we were chasing the game and going even more attacking and open. Silly mistakes need to stop, Turnbull for the first goal is something he’s never done. We need a change of mentality towards defence and defensive mistakes more than we do a change of tactics, and that may well be down to approach and training to stress that defending is as important as attacking.

 

Unless the unimaginable happens and he's fighting the likes of Hearts for 4th or 3rd place come December, it would be absolutely harsh if Ange doesn't get the opportunity of the next transfer window.

He will no doubt have identified the players he needs by that point. Whether the board back him and bring in his players is another discussion. But we would at least get a clearer look at the overall picture to see where we are headed.

Europe for me was a write off long before Ange was even appointed. So I am not even factoring that in.

 

Can imagine what the board assured him to get him to sign.
'Yes, we will give you all the support you need to re-build and transition the team - we have total faith in you. You and Dom McKay have our blessing to get players you need and create this re-build of the squad and we will have funds provided for you to do so. Pick the players you need but keep in mind the budget available. Tell us which players you regard are surplus to your needs and we will take it from there. We have interim backroom staff for you here already that are more that capable to assist you in settling into the club. Bring your own backroom staff when Covid restrictions allow you to do so. Anything you need just come to us. We want Celtic to modernise and progress and bring success and trophies to the loyal fans once more.'
All I see is an isolated guy on the touchline at present dealing with a squad riddled with injuries and a non-functioning midfield simply not firing as it was when Christie was still playing. A midfield bereft of players available to do the job as required. A midfield that MUST NOT expect McGregor to be its saviour because he is one player only and may well not play if tired, sick or injured. We need 4 more players with similar abilties to him. Ange can identify such players - he is good at it and has the contacts to get the type of player he needs.

The board need to give him the support he needs because the current squad still needs improving.
We do not have the petrol to get this vehicle moving to get to our destination.

 

Weirdly as much as they are weasels I don’t think they’d lie about it outright, exaggeration definitely but they don’t like it being pointed out publically they are shitehawks, they would want somebody on board that agrees with them.

It was the timescales and manner we negotiated with players that he was annoyed with, quite rightly, not the budget or level of players he was allowed to bring in.

I can’t imagine him being quiet in negotiations about how he wants the relationship with them to be, and if the board didn’t agree then he wouldn’t be here because he’s too forthright about everything and that’ll scare them.

They will change on a whim at any point though, just look at Rodgers or Lenny’s forst stint. He left because of the boards stingyness, people often forget that because he lost his backbone between 2014 and 2018