Great comments from The Boss yesterday on the subject of whether players will leave and how the club will respond to that. One of the great things about Ange is that he has some of the most polished communication skills I’ve ever seen from a Celtic boss.
Answering a direct question on Giorgios Giakoumakis, he summed up his thinking on the matter and he sounded entirely relaxed on it.
“I don’t think about those things,” he said.
“I don’t think about who I want to keep or who wants to leave. I just work on the basis of the group I have in front of me. If anything changes I deal with it. People have their own ambitions in their football career. My goal is to make sure we are supporting them in their endeavours.
“If they think opportunity is better for them elsewhere then we will go through that process. I don’t think about it because I may want to keep all of them but I could get offers in for them. I think it was my first year of coaching that my favourite player left me after two games because he had a better offer so I have never fallen in love with them.”
It’s a great statement both because it’s funny and because it’s true. Ange cannot afford to think any other way. In the modern game there are very few managers who can. Players do have a lot of power these days, and their agents have even more.
Ange will not panic. Chris Sutton yesterday was labelling it a “disaster” if we sell Giakoumakis and Juranovic, but it will only be a disaster if we’ve not replaced them when the window shuts. Otherwise it’s one in and one out as long as it suits all parties.
That’s how Ange will see it, and so I have no fears about selling either player. Juranovic’s replacement is not just in the squad but in the team already. In spite of stories in the media today about Japan – I might take a closer look at that tale tomorrow, it seems to have a few holes in it – I very much doubt that Giakoumakis will be sold until his own replacement is in the building and probably shown us what he can do.
But there’s a message in there, of course, and it’s for us. Not only is Ange telling us that he doesn’t fall in love with players, he’s telling us that we shouldn’t either and that’s a message he’s sent out to us before of course. He knows that to move us forward he will have to sell key assets at some point, to give us the cash to pursue even better players.
He’s reminding us that we need to trust the process. He’s reminding us that we need to have faith in him and in the plan.
I like Chris Sutton and usually agree with his assessment of all things Celtic. He gets it. He gets us. And he is never afraid to stick up for us. We should be thankful to him and Big Bad John for representing us in the MSM.
However. I disagree with this assessment that it will be a disaster if we sell Giakoumakis and Juranovic. It would be a disaster if they left on frees but that isn’t going to happen is it? Why? Because we are running things properly and look after our assets better than another club I could mention.
Ange will have more money to spend if we get the price we expect to get for these two players. Ange has shown he knows one or two things about what makes a player.
So what exactly would be disastrous about that?
I don’t think I have ever been as relaxed about us selling players, Johnston in at right back for me is an upgrade. Ange knows his stuff and in him I trust.