The Manager And His Prior Record
Ange’s teams are well known for improving as time goes by.
The greatest thing that our rivals should be afraid of is that we have won our first title this early in Ange Postecoglou’s tenure, when players are still adapting to his training style and his playing system. It has happened before his backroom departments are fully up and running, with their focus on analytics and sports science.
It has happened whilst this project is still in its infancy.
History tells us that Ange’s sides improve rapidly, but that you don’t really see them in full flow until season two. If that remains true then to be blunt, Scottish football ain’t seen nothing yet.
On top of that, Ange has never been at a club with the infrastructure to keep on building on his success year by year, and that really is something the rest should be scared by.
We’ve already seen this side play devastating football.
This is before Ange even has the shape of his team just the way he wants it. Imagine how good it will be in the next campaign if all the pieces fit together even better than before?
Imagine this team without the hamstring issues which affected us in season one, and which Ange knew to expect because he’s seen it before? Imagine this team with Kyogo fully fit for the duration, without Turnbull’s long layoff, without Giakoumakis and others being on the treatment table for as long as they were.
Imagine how strong we might be?
Most of these players were still settling in when the campaign finished.
Some of them had come from a full domestic campaign elsewhere.
Rested and fit and ready for the season ahead, just imagine how difficult it will be to stop us?
Project Ange is a year old.
We ought to be very confident that we’ve not seen anything like the best that this manager and this team has to offer. Next season we will be stronger than last, and last season we were too strong for everyone even accounting for that disastrous start.
It’s hard to disagree with much of your analysis. Personally speaking I think the January signings were essential. They, poor Ideguchi excepted, slotted in impressively and allowed Ange to rotate the squad while allowing the long term injuries to get themselves fully fit before throwing them back into the fray. Ideguchi will be like a new signing when the season starts.
If we do sign a centre back, I hope he has the ability to break forward with the ball in the way Ayer often did. It will be another key with which to unlock a stubborn defence. Like you I would like to see an enforcer who can shield the defence while allowing Calmac more freedom to get forward.
Roll on the new season!
I wouldn`t get too cocky if I were you. Old Firm FC may be getting on in years but they are only a matter of weeks older than when they last gave Celtic a difficult game. We`ve been hearing for too long now about their imminent demise and they are still hanging in
there. I fear, with Celtic now starting to drag their feet regarding Jota, remember the McGinn saga?, that Postecoglu could suddenly
find himself in the same situation as Rodgers.
And that`s me being positive, by the way.
You’re maybe being overly pessimistic in response to JF’s over optimism. I’m confident out signings will be sorted and OK. But you’re definitely right with regards old firm FC. We continue to write them off at our peril. Whether they are good or bad we must act as if they are a threat and make sure we are as good as we can be. We also need to massively change how we set up against them. Sitting back cost us the Scottish cup semi final and we did it again a few weeks later and didn’t win.
We’re night and day in terms of the chaos of pre season compared to last year, but we have a lot of improvement still to do before we’re where I’d like us to be.
I’m in suspended animation until the season begins.
An Aussie Celtic Down under.
We are retaining the bulk of our squad – and hopefully is signed.
We have the first ‘proper’ pre-season in many years – without pre-qualifying Euro rounds.
Add in a couple of quality additions, and we could/should be set up for a solid start to the season.
An unknown though is how the World Cup break in Nov/December will impact the team’s momentum, and will some players return tired / injured?
Should be an interesting season though: both at home and in Europe.
* Hopefully Jota is signed.
We have lost more than we have gained with Rogic and Bitton now gone and if we loose Jotta we are looking at second spot we have nothing in midfield against rangers of note and that includes McGregor