Celtic Fans Are Fine With Players Leaving Because We Trust The Man In The Dugout.

An age old media strategy has been playing out for months with little or no success.

It is the putting of constant stories in the newspapers about our players, attempts to shake up Celtic by upsetting the squad and the supporters. It is supposed to get us wailing that this “selling club” of ours intends to asset strip the title winning team the manager has built.

And it has largely failed to accomplish any of those goals.

It is a strategy which increasingly looks like one without hope of success. Celtic fans are just not tuning into it, and the reason they aren’t is incredibly simple; Celtic fans trust the manager.

Celtic fans have seen enough of the process he’s put in place to have faith in it too.

Even those of us who aren’t happy that the ex-CEO is back in the building know that if he stays out of things that aren’t his concern that the machine will continue to roll smoothly and things will get done in the proper way.

Since he left his former role it’s been better.

The manager gave an interview to the media a month or so ago which they never widely publicised. I only know about it because one of The Record “Monday Jury” clowns mentioned it almost in passing, but I thought what he said was fairly significant.

He said that phase one is signing £2 million players to sell them in order to buy £5 million players to sell them in order to move up to the £10 million players.

It’s not easy to do.

You have to sell for a sufficient value to be able to move up, but look at the squad as it stands; clearly, it has worked so far and there’s a clear direction of travel being mapped out.

It is structured. It is cogent.

It is backed by a lot of knowledge and if we get past phase one then phase two will be bagged by serious enough money that phrase three starts to look less like something likely than something certain.

Needless to say, the squad improves with every evolution, the financial position stays strong and the club continues winning things.

It’s designed for progress in Europe. And as all of us know, and have long pushed the line on our club, that if you’re good enough to slug it out in the Champions League then being comfortably ahead in Scotland pretty much takes care of itself. If we had focussed on reaching for that next rung there would never have been a Gerrard title win.

Juranovic may go, but his replacement is in place. Giakoumakis might leave but there will be options being explored for that eventuality.

We believe in this because we believe in the man at the top of the house, not the chairman but the manager, Ange Postecoglou, and so for the first time when we read talk about players maybe going there is no panic.

We are calm, because we know that it’s part of the plan, that it’ll be handled, that the manager will not just look to replace but upgrade.

It’s always good being a Celtic fan, but this feels like a special time.

It feels like we’re moving in a direction where all good things are possible.