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Celtic Fans Must Be Wary Of Any Story Suggesting The Manager And CEO Lied To Us.

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Today there’s a story doing the rounds about how Celtic have told Ange Postecoglou that he must work within the current structures of the club, in terms of his backroom team and that he won’t be able to bring in his own people.

An incendiary claim if it’s true. But is it true?

This comes from one person, from an Australian agent.

He made it on a podcast and he didn’t even come right out and say that it’s a fact.

Only that it’s “his understanding.”

Which is a suspect phrase right there and in no way justifies the firestorm that has already sprung up as the word of this goes viral.

We have no evidence that this is in any way accurate. The guy doesn’t even say where this “understanding” came from; has he talked to Ange? Has he spoken to any of the people who are connected with Celtic?

Did he get it from another blog? An un-informed disgruntled Scottish hack?

We don’t know, so we can’t properly evaluate the story.

This could be “heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy who works at the airport who heard it from a guy who overheard a conversation at the bar.”

If I had a quid for every time I’ve heard the phrase “as I understand it” doing this job, I wouldn’t have to do the job.

I could buy my own private island and pay Celtic to come and play friendlies there once a week.

99% of the time, there’s no truth to any of it.

You get a kind of sixth sense for this stuff and my sense of this is that the story is probably rubbish.

This is uniformed speculation, nothing more, but it’s juicy and the media is sinking its teeth into it as you would expect.

They love the idea of stirring the soup, as we all know well, and we shouldn’t be playing the game.

What do we know, based on what’s been said out of Celtic Park?

I was at the fan media press conference where both Ange and Dominic McKay said, on the record, that the manager runs the show.

He picks who he works with.

He has total control of the process.

He is evaluating right now.

He’s making those key decisions based on what he sees on a daily basis. He has said that he expects to make changes.

To believe anything else is to call these men liars.

That’s the long and short of it.

They were asked the question, as plain as you like, and they gave their answers, as plain as you like, and if this story is true then they both sat there and they brazenly lied to the fan media representatives and thus to the whole support.

Which do you think is the more likely?

That Postecoglou and McKay lied, or that “the guy” and his “understanding” are wrong?

What have either the CEO or the manager done to justify believing him?

Neither has been in the building long enough to develop or earn that reputation.

The allegation is sufficiently serious that we are entitled to ask the question.

But presuming that these men are being dishonest, as some are already doing and as the media is certainly keen to promote, is ridiculous, and unwarranted.

Ange Postecoglou does not strike me as the sort of man to let decisions like that be made for him.

It’s a grave enough allegation, however, that I’ve put the question to Celtic this afternoon; let’s see if they give us a straight answer on it, although it seems to me that they already have.

I don’t know who Tony Rallis got his side of this from – I don’t even know who Tony Rallis is to be frank – but I got my information from Dominic McKay and Ange Postecoglou themselves.

That’s why, as it stands right now, I have serious doubts that this story is true.

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