The Ange to Celtic fantasy ignores history and it’s time to put it to bed.

Celtic supporters should know the gaslighting from this board well enough by now to recognise it when it happens.

Some supporters also avoid certain subjects, as though refusing to acknowledge them somehow makes them less true. One of those topics surfaced again this week in stories about Ange Postecoglou, so it deserves a direct response.

A few weeks ago a podcast host asked Postecoglou whether he would ever return to Celtic. He answered plainly. He said he loved his time at the club, but that period belongs in the past and he is not someone who goes back.

Recently another interviewer raised the possibility of a return to Spurs. This time Postecoglou took a different line. Instead of repeating that he never goes back, he simply said “no comment”.

Some people seized on that difference as evidence that his earlier comment about Celtic might not be absolute. Their logic runs like this: if he left the door open for Spurs, perhaps the Celtic door is not fully closed either.

That interpretation ignores something staring them in the face. Postecoglou will not come back to Celtic and the reasons are as numerous as they are obvious.

Even if the wording of his answers looks slightly different, the reality does not change. The idea that he would return to work for the people currently running this club ignores everything that happened during his time here.

Celtic had ample opportunity to tie Postecoglou down to a long-term deal while he managed the club. That never happened. The reason was simple.

Postecoglou excelled in the job. In his first season the club gave him almost complete control to rebuild the team in his own image. He brought in players he trusted, worked within a system he understood and surrounded himself with people he believed could do the job properly.

That changed the moment Mark Lawwell arrived.

Postecoglou had to sit through a press conference welcoming him to the club, smiling politely and repeating the line that this was someone he knew and trusted. The narrative pushed at the time was that this appointment was part of some grand collaborative plan.

That claim never stood up to scrutiny.

Those who believed that Postecoglou personally selected Lawwell have always struggled to explain where exactly in his career the two had supposedly worked together. The idea was fiction then and it remains fiction now.

The first two transfer windows under Postecoglou were almost flawless. He rebuilt the team quickly and decisively because he had the authority to do so. Once the recruitment structure changed, that authority disappeared.

Instead of acting as the architect of the squad, Postecoglou was increasingly forced to work with whatever pieces were delivered to him. The summer window that followed Lawwell’s arrival was a clear sign that the policy had shifted.

Postecoglou could see exactly where that road was leading.

In truth, Celtic were probably never keeping him once Spurs entered the picture. However, the contract offers made before Tottenham’s interest became public still tell an important story. At that stage there was no guarantee another elite job would come along. Celtic might have been the best opportunity available to him.

He still chose not to commit long-term. That decision says everything that needs to be said about how he viewed the future direction of the club.

Brendan Rodgers returned believing he would once again have control over recruitment and football decisions. Within days of the transfer window opening that illusion was shattered.

Postecoglou had already seen that process unfold from the inside. He knew exactly what the structure had become. The suggestion that he would now return and willingly work within that same system is fantasy.

Postecoglou has always prioritised his own career first. That is not a criticism. It is simply the reality of modern football management.

When he left Celtic, criticism was levelled at him for the way he departed. The same pattern had occurred at previous clubs. In Australia he accepted another job on the very day his team won the championship, standing in front of supporters and promising they would be back to do it again next year even though he already knew he was leaving.

That behaviour does not make him a villain. It makes him a football manager. Managers look after themselves first. Given that reality, the idea that he would return to Celtic and voluntarily step back into the structure that played a part in pushing him out in the first place makes no sense.

When he was asked about a return to Celtic, Postecoglou framed his answer politely. He spoke about not going back to former clubs. There is no need to dissect every word searching for hidden meaning. His answer was clear enough.

If, by some bizarre twist of events, he ever did return to Spurs then the explanation would be equally obvious. Circumstances change. Opportunities appear. The situation at Celtic would not have changed. The same circumstances would apply.

The relationship between Postecoglou and the Mark Lawwell recruitment structure was never going to last. He is not a yes-man and he was never going to operate comfortably inside a committee-driven system. That conflict was inevitable.

Some supporters recognised it at the time. Others preferred to believe the fiction that everything was aligned behind the scenes. The remarkable thing is that some people still believe it now, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.

The transfer system at Celtic does not serve the Celtic manager.

Supporters who insist that Postecoglou must have personally endorsed Lawwell’s appointment often argue that he would never lie about something like that. Those same supporters are now suggesting that perhaps he did not really mean what he said about never returning to Celtic. In short, they’re saying he’s lied.

It is a strange contradiction.

Postecoglou telling a polite untruth at a press conference would at least be consistent with how football managers behave. They protect the club hierarchy in public and pursue their own interests privately. Football is full of these ironies.

Supporting Celtic sometimes means watching them unfold in real time.

Choose The CelticBlog as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.