I don’t know enough about the boss of the Montenegrin national team to know if he prone to over-reaction or histrionics, but when he decided to launch a broadside at Sead Haksabanovic he did so without either on display. Instead, he was focussed and clinical and forensic in his condemnation, and that offers us an insight, perhaps, into what went wrong at our club.
Having just moved from Parkhead to Stoke, the player was called up for the national team.
He contacted the manager, Miodrag Radulovic, and his coaches to tell them that he was too busy moving house to go and play for his country, and when he sat in front of the media to discuss his team’s preparations, Radulovic was in no mood to be nice.
He was calm. But also clearly pissed off.
“Sead contacted us and said that he needs to fulfil obligations related to moving from club to club, from Scotland to England, so we cannot count on him,” he said. “Let him think about this decision. The players show how much they care about playing for our national team by the decisions they make. He’s decided to put his own personal situation first. So, I will only concentrate on the players that are here and who do want to play for Montenegro.”
You could not get a clearer insight into the player than that.
More than his little social media strop, which appalled Brendan Rodgers, this offers a glimpse of someone who is utterly self-absorbed, which is sort of what you might have expected from the kind of person who offered our club nothing of note and then wailed about us not recognising his “value.”
A lot of the time, when a player does not succeed at a club you wrack your brain trying to figure out why and what went wrong.
He didn’t thrill us to the extent fans questioned why managers would not start him regularly, but you could see glimpses of real quality in the player. But when he’s not getting picked week to week you wonder what the inside story is.
Between his social media posts and this, perhaps we’ve come a way towards an explanation.
There is clearly a deficiency between what Celtic was looking for in terms of his attitude and what he offered us in that regard. As I’ve said previously on this site, talent is not enough.
A top player has to have the right set of mental and emotional attributes too, and that’s where he’s failing to make the grade. No less a person than his own national coach has spelled that out.
He needs to go away and work on his game, and come back, if he ever does, a better footballer.
But it might be nice if he worked on his personal discipline and commitment as well and came back a better professional. Then he’d have a real chance of proving his worth, and that value he talks about might be a little more difficult to overlook.
Stoke are managed by Alex Neil, so it’ll be interesting to see if he can get a tune out of him.
Not the brightest either: Haksa won’t be packing up and loading any boxes
into a removal van, that’s for sure. And his family is probably having to make do
with a 5 star hotel stay, until they find accommodation?
He could have claimed he had a sore toe, or anything better than ‘moving house’.
Yes, potentially a super player but just doesn’t have the right attitude.
He’s no loss. More to the point, it’s clear that Brendan takes no shit from anyone.
Great article. I was gutted we hadnt sold him. Glad he isnt playing for his country as he might come back next June as a crock we cant shift. Another Ange failure
Don’t believe hako fits the bill for what Rodgers is looking for from his wide players.
Seen already Rodgers wants his wide players to really attack a full back with skill and pace in the final third.
Hako isn’t that type of wide player, and would question if even playing wide is his best suited position?
Regardless any player joining ourselves is offered there best career opportunities available, yet it still has to be earned, if they have intentions of moving on to better money available elsewhere.
Still remains as the majority don’t, a fair few get better wages elsewhere, but very few will get a chance of CL football and trophies won elsewhere, and hako has only added his name to the list of not progressing beyond ourselves now imo.
Don’t believe Rodgers had any intentions of including him within our CL squad, hence the toys out of the pram reaction.
His opportunities will become far less now, with developing such a stinking attitude, as nitcham found out, and hako will possibly follow in his footsteps now.
Couldn’t care less about him now, and just another player thinking there better than what they could provide.
May well have signed a few already this year, which happens, but as soon as they start mouthing and throwing the stroop, then the exit door has to be shown, as never again will we ever put up with a repeat of the 10iar season and attitude of players on display
Wait is he on loan or sold? Hopefully the latter
The best ‘put downs’ are measured, informative and instructive.
He knows the score now.
The ‘baw’ is in his court now, so to speak.
He always looked like a wrong un to me.
Anybody with his name tattooed on his neck with a crown above it isn’t right in the head.
I’m only surprised he didn’t get the tattoo artist to write his name backwards and the wrong way round so he could read it in the mirror every morning to remember who he is.
I thought Ange did due diligence on players before signing them.
I think he might not have been an Ange signing after all.
He never looks like an Ange style of player to me and I suspect it was the board’s signing ‘model’ at work when they realised they could get him cheap from Ruby Shazam.