Ten Reasons Why Celtic Will Win The Premier League Title Again Next Season.

With the fixtures now out and pre-season training due to start at the end of the month, it feels almost as if the new season is upon us.

Is it just me who thinks that the time between seasons gets shorter every year? Even with no Champions League qualifiers to play we will, in fact, be back in combat for the SPFL title in a mere six weeks.

Don’t get me wrong, that will feel like an age.

But we’ll be into the pre-season friendlies before we know it, and for some of the players their rest period has only just begun. With us now seemingly hurtling towards the new season, the question naturally arises as to how it’s all going to play out.

To say we’re in a better place than this time last year is an understatement.

Fans are confident.

Indeed, I can barely remember any time when fans were as up for it as they are right now.

There is a growing sense of destiny about this team … and this manager.

There is a sense that as good as last season was that we’re only at the start here.

I think we’ll retain the title, and with room to spare.

I can’t see past us for it. This article is about the ten reasons I think we’re a lock. This is about the ten things that I think will make the difference for us and put us over the top with two in a row.

I make no predictions about the domestic cup competitions or about Europe, but obviously I’m also pretty optimistic about those.

For now, I just want to focus on the league race.

But suffice to say, if all the pieces fall into place the European games and the domestic cup competitions will take care of themselves and this could be something very special indeed.

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.

A Peaceful Easy Summer

It has been so long since this club had a relaxing summer that we’ve forgotten what it looks like.

Always in recent years there has been tension and stress over the summer period.

If it wasn’t Champions League qualifiers to play – with them coming early, and each one getting tougher than the one before it – there was a mad scramble to sign players.

For the first time in years there is none of that to concern us.

We will retain our strength, because no key players are going to depart.

There are no qualifiers to play, which eliminates between four and eight additional fixtures … and usually for us the number has been a minimum of six. Ibrox will still have to face four just to reach Group Stage football … and in a summer where we don’t that does give us an advantage early in the campaign.

The games themselves and the less stressful schedule is only part of why this summer looks better than others though.

We can do our business in the transfer market early and well. We have the selling point of Champions League football to tempt players and the guaranteed money to go out and get the ones that we want.

There are so many upsides to this that we’d actually have to work hard to screw this up.

When you consider the upheaval of last summer, and how the campaign ended with a double, can you imagine where we’d have ended up had Ange got the players in early enough that we were better prepared for when the season began?

This season there will be no such issues, and we will be better prepared than we’ve been in years.

It really is hard to imagine even Celtic’s board not seeing the opportunity in front of us.

Ange certainly sees it and he has vowed to be ready before the campaign starts.

It’s up to those above him to deliver … if they do, by God what a chance we have to start fast and pull away before our rivals even get their clapped out car out of the garage.

The Best Defence In The League Is Set To Get Stronger

Last season, our back line was maligned by everyone from the media to some of our own fans.

I had to constantly pinch myself as a reminder that I wasn’t actually dreaming it; looking at the league table and the stats we had the best defence in the country.

So where in the Hell was all the criticism of these guys coming from?

An unfair perception that Starfelt wasn’t up to snuff for starters. An unfair perception that Greg Taylor was a sub-par option that we were stuck with at left back because we had a full squad to rebuild and had to compromise somewhere.

The media would also have you believe we’d have done better had Craig Gordon been in goal.

Yawn. What a bore all the hype over him has become.

The truth is, our defence was excellent last season but improvements can be made to it.

There needs to be a central defender who we can rotate at our leisure and who can offer an alternative to the starters. Someone to make them push themselves to even greater levels by providing competition.

If we get the right guy in he might even supplant one of the current two.

We all know that Greg Taylor isn’t the best left back in the world.

I like the guy, and I think he’s a more than adequate backup.

Had we been on our toes just a little more in the League Cup semi-final, had we played with a little more intensity, he would have been one of the heroes of the whole campaign for his opening goal … but there is better out there.

And the chances are that we are going to sign at least one player in this position, as a first choice starter. That might be unfair to Greg, but it’s necessary if this squad is to grow and develop into what it’s capable of being.

So big changes are ahead.

We’re also adding a bloody good stand in for Joe Hart, a change that is very necessary because I think all of our nightmares were haunted last season by a ghastly “What if …?” question in relation to the big guy.

Now if worst comes to worst we’ll have it covered.

The best defence in the country is set to get stronger.

That, on its own, puts critical points in the bank.

That, on its own, could be enough to swing this in our favour.

The Best Midfield In The League Is Set To Get Stronger

Even with the loss of Bitton and Rogic, we’re a heavyweight power in midfield.

We still have three places and a host of players in competition for them.

McGregor, Hatate, Ideguchi, O’Riley, McCarthy, and Turnbull will all fight for those slots and although we didn’t see much of two of them in the last campaign, expect them to play a more prominent role this time.

Bitton and Rogic had made up their minds to leave.

Which is why we brought in O’Riley and Hatate in the January window, in a sterling example of planning ahead, which is something this team has all too rarely done. We know we need something more though.

Which is why the club has spent the last few months looking at the one area of the pitch where we need something a little different; the defensive midfield role. It’s something this website has been talking about for a long time, and we had hoped that James McCarthy might be the player to fill it. He will play a role next season, but not the one we anticipated.

The club has tried him there. We’ve tried Soro there. We’ve tried Bitton there.

Callum does a sterling job there at the moment, but I’ve long suspected that the manager knows what many of us have been saying a while; he’s wasted in that position when he should be playing further forward and laying on goals and scoring them.

It’s my considered view than in the box-to-box role where Callum excels that he’s one of the best midfield players in Britain, far less Scotland, where he’s already so far ahead of everyone else that it’s almost embarrassing.

The right signing frees him up.

And Ange knows something else; he knows that we lost the midfield battle several times last season because we lacked a player who plays the Scott Brown game; a midfield grafter who joins the battle and doesn’t shirk a tackle, a hard man, a ball winner.

Every midfielder we’ve been linked with so far plays in that position.

Every single one of them.

The media might not have the names right but they’ve been steered towards a certain type and there is not the least doubt that we’re actively looking for that player.

That will make Scotland’s best midfield stronger still … and on top of signing that guy look out for one more wildcard, probably someone with potential … it’s not for nothing that we’re scouting Connor Barron at Aberdeen.

Someone in that mould is a possibility as well.

Don’t rule anything out on that front.

Our Front Men Haven’t Even Hit Top Form Yet

Something happened towards the end of last season that sparked a brief debate at the time but went largely unremarked on as the campaign drew to a close. It was quite an amazing something, something that we might even have described as incredible had we all been able to take a moment to sit and breathe and think about it.

At the point where Kyogo, who up until then had been drawing comparisons with Larsson and looked like the undisputed first choice, had regained his fitness and was ready to come back into the team, we found ourselves debating whether he should.

The player who we all reckon is the best striker we’ve had at the club in around almost 20 years was suddenly being talked about as if he wasn’t the automatic pick … and that is down to one man, the guy who came in for him and posed the question in the first place.

There is not the least doubt that we’re watching the emergence of not one major striker but two. Giakoumakis is a phenomenal natural finisher, and one of those players who grows as his confidence does.

You saw how he ended the season.

His first goals of the two he scored against Motherwell was a masterpiece of confidence and ability.

His powerful headed goal for Greece last week shows that he continues to build on an already impressive talent.

And yet, for all that, Kyogo is still a better player.

Kyogo has everything, and that’s why he will continue to edge it.

The only thing really not up for debate is that both of these players can get even better than they are now, and that they will both almost certainly score more goals in the next campaign than they did in this one.

Then there’s Maeda, who looks like another phenomenal footballer who works harder than any player I’ve seen in a Celtic strip and who knows where the net is too. He plays predominantly wide at the moment, but he was Japan’s top scorer last season and so has an eye for goal which can’t be denied. He, too, is just settling into this team.

The wide players are going to improve as well. Jota and Abada are already weighing in with goals, and Forrest just signed a new deal.

The suspicion remains that we’ll sign at least one player in a wide attacking role … and there are rumours of another striker as well.

All in all, we this strike-force would be terrifying enough if only one Giakoumakis or Kyogo were in it.

With both of them we already have the two best forwards in the country bar none, and we haven’t seen close to the best of either of them.

Even without adding to it I reckon our strike-force is just going to be too strong.

If we increase our firepower who can stand in our way?

A Strong, Stable Club Free Of Drama

At football clubs, it is tempting to focus only on what you see happening on the pitch.

But that never tells the whole story of what is going on there. Events off the field can have a terrible impact. If the club is engaged in turmoil behind the scenes, everyone loses focus.

There is exactly that sort of turmoil still going on at Ibrox.

There was a period, just after New Year, when their club was slipping in the league and before the board produced its two “game changing” (haha) bling signings, when the serious problems behind the scenes were peeking out into the public domain.

Keith Jackson was writing about them, amongst others, and it was clear that some kind of civil war was brewing inside their boardroom. King was hovering and causing trouble. Club 1872 was weighing in and kicking out at the directors.

James Bisgrove, in particular, had a target on his back and it was apparent that some inside the club were openly briefing against him. It’s amazing what a couple of rabbits out of the hat and a European run will do to distract people, isn’t it?

But their problems never went away.

They will return this year with a vengeance, especially when it becomes clear that there’s no pulling the same trick twice. Fans will be asking questions if the club is not ambitious in the transfer market.

Senior directors will be demanding answers of the others if key assets speed towards freedom of contract, especially if those senior directors are once again being asked to carry losses as a consequence of that.

On top of that, there are wars. Wars with the SFPL. Wars continuing with the courts. Wars over various aspects of their shirt deals. Wars even with their own fans.

Don’t underestimate the power all that has to wreak havoc.

Behind the scenes at Celtic, there is relative calm. As much as some of us have real doubts about some of the internal appointments, one thing we can say for sure is that all this people can work together and will sing off the same hymn sheet.

Our club does not make problems for itself by picking fights everywhere it can.

We don’t charge journalists or fan media to attend press events.

We are, in comparison to Ibrox, a pretty boring bunch.

But substitute that word for professional, because that’s what it ultimately means.

We don’t have lunatics running the asylum.

And believe me, that makes a difference.

A Steady, Behind The Scenes Improvement

Aside from the work being done on the team, Ange is pushing his revolution into high gear out on the training pitch and behind the scenes as well.

The restructuring of the coaching team, with the bringing in of Harry Kewell is just one of several things that’s been done lately which strengthens the operation off the pitch, to benefit what happens on it.

This is one of Ange’s strongest areas, his embrace of science and data driven performances. He has talked about it at pressers and in interviews. He wants this team to be as strong as it can be, and he wants to squeeze every last advantage out that he can.

Ronny Deila, and then Brendan, brought this stuff to Celtic.

It was publicly eschewed by Lennon, to the detriment of the whole club.

Rodgers, to be fair, was responsible for that in some ways as he looted the backroom team before he left … but we should have rebuilt all that, and it’s only now under Ange that we are putting the pieces back in place.

That is massive.

The changes behind the scenes are just as important as the ones we have going on the pitch. If our club comes close to rebuilding the system we had whilst Rodgers was here Ange will make sure that we capitalise on it for all its worth.

Even if it wins us a handful of extra points … those could be critical.

The Confidence Of Champions

There is nothing more beneficial for a new group of players than to know that they have what it takes to win honours regularly, and especially league titles. Winning times are forged by victory. Teams have to get used to winning.

It improves their mentality and when it all clicks it can make them feel nearly invincible.

You see it as team grows in stature. The first treble made the second easier and the once we had the second you could see that the players were confident of the third and the fourth. It’s when teams lose that hunger that they need to be broken up but whilst that hunger lasts it is insatiable and a force that drives great teams onward.

This Celtic side now has a taste of success. You saw the nerves that we showed in the final stages of the run-in. They won’t exist next time, because these players know they can get over the line and will be filled with self belief. That makes a big difference.

You can see how much these players enjoyed being part of that success.

The natural progression of that is that they will want more of it. Furthermore, they will refuse to accept defeat and push harder than ever to make sure that they hold onto their crown.

As ever, we must watch for complacency and that loss of hunger … but Ange has seen it all before and will be ever alert for the signs. The loss of hunger happens naturally to all winning teams, which is why the truly great managers rebuild them every so often.

But this is a team at the start of a cycle, not at the end of one.

With that in mind, and their drive to succeed, I think this team will be more driven, and filled with belief, than ever. For our rivals, that’s a deadly combination.

Turmoil And Uncertainty Elsewhere

Unless things take a radically different turn, the club from Ibrox is in the midst of a summer which will create turmoil at their club.

It has, in fact, already begun with key backroom team members, who were only there because they wanted to work with Gerrard, leaving. The next group to go are the players nearing the ends of their deals.

Or maybe they won’t go.

Maybe they will stay and run those deals down, but I cannot think of many things scarier than having a hard core of players at my club who were not committed to it and who knew that a bad injury would cost them millions in future wages.

Think those guys are going to run through walls for you?

Of course not. You saw how Odsonne Edouard got towards the end.

That guy epitomised what happens.

Imagine all of them go. The club won’t get the kind of money it wants, but it will get enough to let them do a rebuild. Unless they are very good or very lucky, that will disrupt what’s left of the dressing room. It was my biggest fear last summer that a squad rebuild on the scale we required is virtually impossible to do without causing some issues.

We had one advantage they don’t have; we were starting on a clean slate and thus the manager was empowered to take his time and bring in only the sort of guys he thought would make a difference.

They are actually in a tougher position than that. Expectations over there are sky high. Their manager is expected to improve them, not take them backwards … they won’t tolerate a slow start, far less European humiliation.

So they will make snap decisions.

They will bring in players without doing their due diligence, because due diligence is what takes the time and they won’t want to waste it … I can see that causing all sorts of problems.

The rebuild won’t be as big as it otherwise would have been because they’ve renegotiated deals with guys who were expected to leave … but they need to work faster than we did last summer and make big decisions if they are to hit the ground running.

They know we will, and when Ibrox is faced with a need to impress or appease its own fans that’s when the fun happens.

They don’t have a settled summer.

They are faced with a similar situation to ours last season except that the fans now expect this manager to deliver and to deliver big, and deliver right away.

There’s no clean slate to start on … the conditions for a mess are all present.

The Ability To Add Quality In January

In many ways, the league was won in the January window last season, because although I think we had enough in the squad to get there anyway, you can see that it majorly strengthened our hand at just the right time.

That the signings had such a significant impact on the second half of the season is not in the slightest doubt … and we will be able to do that again this season.

Celtic will not spend the full £40 million Champions League bounty in one go, and nor should we. We will use that cash more wisely than that. Some of it will be spent on infrastructure, some of it on the backroom team … and some earmarked for January.

Because if we’re in a place then where the squad needs an extra shot in the arm we can get one.

We can strengthen a key area or key areas.

If players are injured we can replace them.

If someone isn’t on form we can sign someone to do better.

Our ability to do this confers a major advantage on us.

I knew last season that as long as we were still in the race come January that Ange would spend wisely and that it would make a difference. Even believing that, I was stunned by how superbly it all worked out.

If the race is even close in January – I don’t expect it to be, by the way – we will have the ability to push ourselves that bit further by spending some money on proven quality.

Being able to play that card last season was massive … being able to play it this season, when we know Ibrox will probably not be able to match us, puts a ribbon on this thing.

We’re Too Good, And Too Strong, Not To Be Overwhelming Favourites

This combination of factors is too much for our rivals to stand up to.

Teams who couldn’t score against us last season will have even less chance of doing so if we strengthen the defence.

Midfields which couldn’t cope certainly won’t be able to if it’s got that ball winning hard man.

They could barely cope with our forwards … I think they’ll be unable to cope as it is, but if we add quality in the front area I don’t see how we can be stopped.

We are building our backroom team as they lose key members of theirs.

Don’t underestimate the impact that might have.

We have a settled squad. They face major changes to theirs, and under a manager who is mistakenly hailed as a miracle worker and thus has no room for error.

Celtic has a settled club. They are still in the midst of chaos.

We can bring in more quality in January.

They will struggle to match that, barring Champions League qualification.

I don’t think they’ll get there.

Their run to the European final on the back of seven wins was a moon-shot. You get one of those.

More important than any of that is Ange.

He is a better manager than Van Bronckhorst and with a clearer vision.

To have won the title in his first campaign is incredible, and his ideas and his changes and his policies generally only start to bear fruit in the second season, which means we should expect there to be improvements across the boards.

His vision is for the whole of the club.

Now that he’s started putting his backroom team in place those improvements will be obvious at every level. The good fortune to have come across such a man is like winning the lottery with a quid you found on the subway.

If our club really has changed, and learned something from previous mistakes, it will back this guy to the hilt … if it does that we’re not looking back folks.

Celtic will retain the Scottish Premier League title … it’s what this club accomplishes in addition to that which truly makes me excited for the campaign in front of us.

The season just past was outstanding … but how well do you know it? Take the quiz, go up against your mates, and see who gets the highest score on Celtic’s 2021-22 campaign.