Ange was not a happy man at the weekend, but in spite of some prodding and poking from the media who were hoping for some easy headlines he steadfastly refused to point fingers inside the club.
When asked about deals for players he said that the club wanted him to succeed, which might seem a curious thing for any football manager to say. Most take that for granted.
But Ange knows that wanting him to succeed isn’t the be all and end of all of it.
Every board wants a new manager to succeed, but some want him to succeed only on their own terms and within their own set of restrictions. It’s a truism of football that a board’s ambition rarely, if ever, comes up to that of the manager and few clubs have a board like this one.
Every Celtic manager of the modern era has watched as they have made impossible demands of him.
It is to the credit of all of them that we were so successful, for so long, under those conditions.
Ange may have their assurances that they want to see him do well, but what assurances does he have that he will be properly supported in that endeavour?
It’s not enough that they throw this guy some scratch and tell him to get on with it.
They have to give him the funds to do the job. Amazingly, this rebuild was planned.
They knew we’d go into this window needing to replace a significant part of the first team squad. Surely they didn’t intend to do that huge task on the cheap, did they? Surely they realised it would be expensive?
The problem is, this board has shown a stunning lack of accountability.
Only Lawwell, amongst them, knew that the game was up and was prepared to do the honourable thing. For all the anger we’ve all expressed towards him from time to time, none of us should forget that he would have been the single biggest impediment to this club coming together over the summer had he stayed … and he realised that and stepped aside.
He at least was willing to pay the price.
No-one else on the board has, and that means their first loyalty is to themselves.
Why would they show any to a total stranger hired from the other side of the world?
The Celtic fans groups who had planned a protest against the board have set a new date for it; Sunday’s game against Dundee.
It’s as good a time as any.
The people “running” this club need to be put on notice that the truce is temporary and that the fans are backing the manager and the players, not them.