Spurs Tall Tales Are Another Dire Celtic Boss Rumour Which Is Going Precisely Nowhere.
Soccer Football - Scottish Premiership - Celtic v Heart of Midlothian - Celtic Park, Glasgow, Scotland, Britain - March 8, 2023 Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou before the match Action Images via Reuters/Lee Smith
One lazy journalist south of the border mentions Ange Postecoglou amidst a list of names who the Spurs board might be interested in at the end of the season and we are, once more, off to the races.
Forget the actual drum-beat down south which is that Mauricio Pochettino wants it, he’s available and that this would answer the prayers of fans and board both … the temptation to resist throwing Ange’s name in there is overwhelming, especially up here.
The Spurs job is massive. I could see why he’d be interested if that opportunity came along. But the way their fans and their board see it, Ange would be taking a punt.
The guy who already steered them to a Champions League Final and considers that he has unfinished business there, the guy who is a bigger name by far, the guy who has not been tarnished by his failure at PSG because most people realise that club is not structured for success, is simply waiting for the call. Everyone credible in England knows it.
The other guy Spurs are interested in is another former PSG boss, Thomas Tuchel, who was also at Chelsea (as Conte was). He is supposed to have doubts. But you see the pattern? These are huge global football names, names that attracted the richest club on the planet. Both men won titles there. Those titles were not considered enough.
This is the calibre Spurs can go after and stand a chance of getting. I believe that Ange is an elite level manager, and I’ve written that, but there is a snobbery in the EPL which will never allow a club like theirs to consider the boss of Celtic whilst Celtic play in the SPFL. Pochettino is the glamorous choice, the one wanted by most of the players and fans and this is well known enough to the Spurs board that they would be crazy not to hire him.
Our media will have some fun with this, but really that’s all that it is and we should not indulge it. It’s just another part of the running joke.
But listen to what Ange actually says and consider Spurs managerial profile, and their wish-list. There is no universe in which this is a legitimate area of concern for us, and most of those who will write about it know that.