Ange Postecoglou

I miss his pressers almost more than the football style, just someone you could listen to all day and love the way he tears apart reporters with ease.

 

Great Guy Great Manager but he came here in the same way players Do too reach the Top.

 

The last few week have been like when the ex has left you but after pumping the huns away with a depleted squad, you've just pumped a tidy thing and the mourning is over..

 

I can understand some of the bitterness, though. He's the first manager I've ever seen here who Celtic means nothing to. He came, did a very professional job and then moved on when a better job was offered. End of association. I've never seen that before. Tommy was Tommy. We meant something to Wim and Dr Jo. * rest all 3 of them. John Barnes still whines about us to this day. MON and WGS still love Celtic. I imagine Tony Mowbray probably still feels something (I still remember him as a player). Lenny is Celtic through and through, Ronny still talks about us all the time, Rodgers still talked about us at times.

But Ange has moved on.

 

I doubt it's true that Celtic means nothing to him. He's very one-track minded on his current task but I'm pretty sure he'll talk about us fondly in time.

 

The win at Ibrox has me well moved on from Ange tbh

 

How can you seriously suggest Celtic meant nothing to him then say Barnes cares about us more.

 

He’s definitely moved on because that’s what he does, but I don’t think we’re nothing to him. He loved his time here, there can’t be any doubt about it.

 

I think he did but I take RR’s point I don’t think he bought into it the same as others maybe have.

 

Gonna take a little more time than this for me.

I'm not pining for Ange at all, it's done, we move on etc.

But don't think we've quite established ourselves after him yet.

Need to see a run of good games, 3-5 as soon as we return this weekend and that'll dust it all off.

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Well, I mean, the first thing is that I didn't actually say that.

I actually didn't explicitly say anything about John Barnes other than that he moans about us; but I did imply that Celtic means something to him (I didn't say we mean something good!) This is actually an important point, because I could easily and correctly have said that he cares about us more, in the right sentential context. This is because, depending on what you mean by "care about Celtic", even dislike implies this much more than utter indifference.

As you know, you can care about something the way you care about your family and you can care about something the way you might care about the war in Ukraine: I absolutely hate it, but I certainly care about it in the sense that it has an importance in my world. Yes, I know the former meaning is the more saliant one in general; but context is important.

In general, it can sometimes be more painful when someone is utterly uninterested and indifferent to your existence than when someone dislikes you, particularly if it is someone you admire. For me at least, that is the case here.

 

Yes, and that's the other thing: it's quite a surprise actually, because he talked like he did buy into it. I took a break from the forum for a couple of years after Lenny's final season and literally rejoined the day it became clear he really was leaving (because it hurt and I wanted to talk about it); but I'm willing to bet that one of the most common comments on here during Ange's first season was: "He gets it." I'd bet quite a lot on that.

 

You said exactly that. If Celtic means nothing to Postecoglou like you said, then Barnes caring at all (positively or negatively) means that he cares more by default.

 

I never used the expression "cares about", though. You can search the post and it doesn't contain those words. I used "means nothing/something to". This doesn't have the ambiguity of "care about".

I don't see the problem here. If Barnes is resentful (and he is) and Ange is indifferent (more arguable, but that's my impression), then yes we do mean more to John Barnes. Where exactly are we disagreeing here?

 

Who even gives a * about John Barnes anyway.

 

This is semantics but if something means something to you then in some way or another you care about it. Anyway, I think Ange loved his time with us.

 

Yes, but you don't necessarily have to care about it in a positive way. You can also care about it in a negative way, like John Barnes. Sometimes you even see these feelings flip back and forth, such as how many (most?) fans have felt about Lenny at various times and a few about Rodgers.

It tells us something interesting that positive and negative feelings can flip, because we've all seen such things and understand them; but someone who seems to flip between caring and indifference is not taken as genuinely flipping but rather as being disingenuous. Psychologically, it's hard to see how someone could flip back and forth between these states.

I respect that you think Ange loved his time with us. In hindsight, that's not what I see. I see a man who was utterly driven to be successful in his job and who kept his private life hermetically sealed from his role at Celtic.

 

I think he was genuine about "getting Celtic.

His story was one Celtic fans can relate to: Immigrant child in a new land struggling for acceptance. Working class upbringing, strong sense of family esp. relationship with his dad, and how football and their club was the glue between them and his wider immigrant community.

When he spoke to his players about how fortunate they were, and to spare a thought about the struggles of ordinary people he reminded them they can make them forgot about their woes for a 90 minutes, and go happy on the way home. He "got" that because in his childhood he and his family and community lived that life too.

He didn't invent that life to connect with Celtic fans.

That's him.

In that same context, he has had to become ruthless and single minded and to a degree emotionally detached if he was ever going to even get an opportunity coming from a footballing back-water like Australia. I'm 5 years younger than him but I lived in the same city (and watched him as a full back) and unless you were there its hard to appreciate how badly marginalized football and the people who loved it were-and still are-in Melbourne in the 80's and 90's.

 

Aye this is what I said.

Keeping your personal life separate doesn't mean you can't enjoy your work. Other than press conferences, he clearly did enjoy his job. You could see his emotion when the fans sang his name. You could see him enjoying wins. You can see what he has to say about the club. What has he done to make you think otherwise?

 

I think where we differ is only in the connection between the good time he had and the club itself.

Forgive the crude analogy (unfortunately, I can't think of a better one), but a young man might have a genuinely good time with a girl and treat her with respect while he is dating her and then leave her when a better opportunity comes along, but the test of whether she ever actually meant anything to him or not is not whether he had a good time or not but whether that good time was in any way contingent on the girl herself and who she is as a person or whether any other girl who gave him the same benefits would have done just as well. With Ange, you clearly think it's the former and perhaps you're right (*, I even hope you're right!); but to me it looks like the latter.