Yesterday, as we all know, Ange won his latest manager of the month award and he deserved it after a storming February where we moved clear and then extended our lead at the top of the table.
There was no other candidate. He earned it.
But for the second time this season, Ange has decided to use winning the award to share the credit amongst the rest of the backroom team.
In an era where most managers want to suck in all the oxygen to themselves – Rodgers did it so often you were sometimes surprised that anyone else in the room could breathe without a mask on – Ange’s actions are a sign of his deftness and sure touch with other people. Our manager is simply a good man.
Yet I feel as if this more. This is Ange confronting some of the contradictions in our fan-base. He is telling the supporters “I trust these guys, you trust me, therefore you should trust them.”
Although I suspect he’s unaware of the depth of anger amongst our fans over the Australian friendly against FC Bitterness, he does have the temperature of the support overall.
And I am sure he knows – because the coaches themselves know, especially John Kennedy – that these guys are viewed with some suspicion amongst the supporters. He knows this because he knows that retaining them in the first place wasn’t a popular move.
Indeed, in the early part of Ange’s tenure it was one of the sticks that was frequently used to beat him.
The idea that he had “been denied his own backroom team” is still prevalent today although he has flatly denied this and his past history contradicts it.
Ange always, initially, works with the people who were at a club before he arrived.
This is not to say though that if he felt they weren’t doing the job that he wouldn’t ship them out the door once he had his feet under the table. Yet he hasn’t in this case.
Does anyone really believe it’s because he doesn’t have the mandate to do it?
We were set to overhaul the entire football department before he arrived.
He vetoed all of it. He didn’t want a director of football when he was capable of overseeing the grand plan all on his own. He runs the show to an extent no Celtic boss has since Martin O’Neill.
With this In mind, we should pay attention to the message he is very obviously sending us here; he is confident in his coaching team.
Perhaps it’s time we were too.