No Celtic Boss Has Ever Laid Down The Hard Facts To His Team The Way Ange Did Yesterday.

It is, in some ways, the job of every manager in football to convey to his players the necessary requirements of being part of the club. We all know that this isn’t necessarily what happens. Sometimes standards are so low, and expectations with them, that clubs descend into anarchy. That was never going to happen with Ange Postecoglou.

In the very short time that Ange has been boss, he has delivered to his players a clear understanding of what those requirements are. But he’s also put some writing on the wall in a way few other managers of the club ever have. Yesterday was a case in point.

The rumblings and rumours continue about Giakoumakis and Juranovic. They continue because neither piece of business has been settled yet and because we don’t yet have a replacement for the big striker should he depart in this window.

One of those rumours is that Giakoumakis, in particular, is not happy that he’s not being given guarantees of playing every week. The same rumour stalks the Korean striker Cho Gue-Sung; he allegedly wants that assurance before he’ll leave his current club.

But Ange Postecoglou has laid it out for them both, and for everyone else out there who might be under the misapprehension that they’ll ever get such a guarantee from him. They won’t. What’s more, he’s right to point out that in the modern age where squad rotation is common it’s an assurance that they’ll not get most other places either.

We have a media here which is used to trying to twist the boss’s words into some totally different shape than he intended; in this instance I dare them to try because he was clear yesterday as he has ever been and the message is impossible to ignore.

“I’ve said in the past you can have guaranteed game time but you won’t play for this club or any big club,” he said. ““Guaranteed play time you can get it at a club where maybe they’re not as strong or are not competing for trophies. But that’s not what these players want. They want to be the best and they want to win every competition well. To do that they understand you need to have a strong squad, they need to compete for places and that’s what they’re doing. If at any point any player is not happy with that or wants more game time, well, there’s only one way to do that and that is to train hard when you get an opportunity, to do well and present yourself in the best possible light or you can look for other opportunities elsewhere.”

My jaw dropped hearing that yesterday.

It was as blunt and, even brutal, as I’ve heard a Celtic manager be in a long, long time and if that doesn’t make the message ring out loud and clear that this is a guy, and ours is a club, that expects players to get with the program then I don’t know what will.

It’s a warning to those who are here and those still to come.