Yesterday there were two separate media events in two different parts of the country, and the contrast between the two men at the centre of them could not have been more stark. Eddie Howe was unveiled as the boss of Saudi play-thing Newcastle United on the same day that Ange won his first Manager of the Month award in Scotland.
Howe has never spoken about why he backed away from the Celtic job before now, but yesterday he said it was to do with his back room team. He didn’t elaborate on the issues there, but I hear some of them weren’t keen on the move to Scotland and he was unable to convince them.
And because he wasn’t able to have his mates, he turned us down.
Some folk need their entourage. Some folk need a comfort level. They need their pals around them.
It can work wonders. It can also end in disaster.
But real talent and real ability lies in being able to work with the tools which are to hand. I want to see Ange bring in some of his “own” people, but in his case that will mean folk he’s vetted and likes the look of. Ange does need his mates to follow him around. He’s got enough about him without that.
This is a real strength of Ange’s which is not given the examination it probably deserves. It takes a really resilient personality to do what he has done in his career; he has never moved from one job to another and dragged an entourage with him.
He doesn’t need to, and he doesn’t see the merit in it. He prefers to work with people already on the scene, people who know the club inside out and whatever we may think of John Kennedy and others there is no doubt that they have been at Celtic long enough to have the lay of the land down cold.
They deserve credit, too, by the way, for adapting to him and his ideas.
He made a point of appearing yesterday in the photographs with all the members of the coaching team.
He put them on the podium with him. That’s a mark of respect for them and for their work, and it’s also a unifying move, yet another one from this formidably talented man who has come here and in very short order made dramatic changes for the better.
Eddie Howe needed his pals. I can accept that and understand that and appreciate that. Rodgers brought his team with him and left with them as well. Gerrard is about to take the entire upper echelon of Ibrox’s coaching staff when he departs.
That’s the downside of letting someone bring all his buddies with him. They all want to leave at the same time.
Ange is a tough individual and very self-assured. When you consider that he moved not only to a new club but to the other side of the world without feeling the least bit concerned at what might be waiting for him at Celtic Park, it makes you glad it has turned out this way.
Eddie Howe would have done a good job at Celtic; I’ve never doubted it.
But I wonder how he’d have coped with adversity. I wonder how he’d have handled the media. I wonder how long it would have taken him to get his ideas across. I wonder if he and his backroom team would have settled in as comfortably as the amiable Aussie has.
We’ll never know. And by the time Ange has delivered this title, nobody is going to even care.
Disagree. Most top managers come with their coaching team, and they follow from club to club. He said he could not get his backroom team together. He then said given the size of the club that would have been a big problem. He was being honest. Yes Ange has done well but do you honestly think Kennedy and Strachan would have been first choice. The guy was honest as written in another blog. Good luck to him.
I’m not sure whether Howe would have been a success at Celtic at all. I wasn’t screaming out for an EPL relegation manager.
I reckon though we wouldn’t have seen the likes of Kyogo or Jota in a Celtic top or the other players Ange has targeted in January and thereafter.
I have no idea which players Howe could have attracted on our budget, another Duffy or Ajeti mibbies, or how much he could have improved existing players such as Ralston, but I just can’t see that he could have done what Ange has done in his first few months. So for me, knowing the man we got, Howe no loss at all. HH
The ‘Entire Management Team’ model is a flawed one for clubs. When, on the receiving end (as currently at Ibrox), it rips out the whole of football operations and three or four vacancies have to be filled rather than one.
Yes, very telling that he has done the photo with the whole coaching team. He wants everybody’s contribution recognised if they buy into what he is doing.
The more you see of this guy and how he goes about his business, the more impressed you are.
We said it at the time and we all agreed, I thought. If Ange had Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumpling foisted on him then he was a yes man. So what has changed?
I don’t have a problem with Eddie Howe at all. Sure he messed Celtic about but Celtic allowed him to do that. Our board were the monkeys, not Eddie Howe.
Good luck to him, I say. Obviously better luck to Ange but let’s not start revising what the Celtic fan take on it was at the time. We wanted Howe at CP and the appointment of Ange was extremely underwhelming. I wasn’t whelmed anyway, were you?
So that’s why we’re stuck with Kennedy and Strachan.