For most managers, yesterday was transfer deadline day.
A mostly frantic, sometimes hair-on-fire affair spent scrambling around in the final hours of the January market in search of last-minute, season-defining deals as the clock ticks down to close of business. For Ange Postecoglou, it was Tuesday. Yes, he was waiting for a call from the chief exec’s office to confirm that the lockers of the likes of Giorgios Giakoumakis and Oliver Abildgaard can safely be emptied out.
But, for the most part, the big Aussie was going about his daily routine of preparing those players still at his disposal for another 90 minutes of title chasing, this time ahead of tonight’s visit from Livingston. And this low maintenance approach to management leads to a pretty obvious conclusion. The football world would be a far less stressful place to navigate if it had more Postecoglous in it. Celtic’s most meaningful business was concluded long before Sky Sports dispatched their roving reporters for a late shift at training grounds up and down the country.
Having foreseen the departures of Josip Juranovic and Giakoumakis coming from a mile off, the manager had already identified his priority targets long before the January sales had even opened. With Alistair Johnston, Yuki Kobayashi, Tomoki Iwata and Oh Hyeon-gyu already inside the building at Lennoxtown, Postecoglou hardly had a care in the world as deadline day hysteria was setting in almost everywhere else.
“It’s like any other Tuesday. There won’t be any ins,” was how he put it yesterday lunchtime when asked if he had a busy afternoon ahead. “At this stage there is a little bit happening in the background in terms of outgoings but nothing confirmed - and Michael Nicholson is mainly handling all of that.”
That’s the thing about Postecoglou. Maximum planning leads to minimum fuss. After all, he first began all this succession work way back during the Champions League campaign when he first warned Celtic’s supporters that one or two of their favourites might be nearing the exit.
“They’re just football players,” he said at the time, “I don’t fall in love with them,”.
Instead, Postecoglou finds a way to upgrade them. Although he is realistic enough to accept that those solutions cannot be taken for granted.
“Time will tell,” he said yesterday when asked if Celtic are stronger coming out of the window than they were going in. “In terms of our objectives going into this window I thought there were a couple of opportunities to strengthen the squad. Particularly with players identified early.
“We also knew that, more than likely, we would have a couple of exits in potentially key players like Josip and Giakoumakis. So I certainly didn’t want to be sitting here on deadline day sweating over exits of guys like Josip or Giakoumakis without having identified replacements. The fact we have them already puts us in a really good position.
“With Josip and Giako going out we have brought in four players under the age of 24 for less money than we have brought in, so from that point of view we have achieved our objective. If they contribute to the level I think they can then I believe we will come out stronger.
“It’s not about just spending money, it’s about spending money we have brought in and being strategic about it. If we were bringing in players who weren’t increasing in value then we wouldn’t be able to reinvest that into players to replace them.
“All those things have a knock on effect and when you look at our current squad we have a great deal of value in that squad “If we do have to replace someone we will have the funds to replace them with a good player and I think that’s important.”
It’s a lesson in wheeling and dealing that Postecoglou first learned as a novice boss at South Melbourne more than 20 years ago. And one which has lasted the test of time. He goes on: “The first player I signed, I think we spent a club record fee of $5000! We got a player from a rival and I remember we did the deal in the back of the president’s car after we’d picked him up from his house! Don’t ask me his name.
“It was like when I came here to Celtic - we did about seven or eight signings in two weeks. But yeah, things have changed. Thinking of my background, I’ve worked at clubs with fairly low budgets which would probably surprise people working here. But even back then I took that part of the role seriously.
“It’s about how you spend your money, whether that’s a small amount or a large amount. Look, when we were starting in the A-League we had a salary cap where we all spent the same which made it more of a challenge.
“If I spent my quid better than you spent your quid then I’d win the league. So I’ve always taken that part of the job seriously.”
Tonight’s opponent, Livi’s David Martindale, has spoken recently of the enormous financial chasm which makes Postecoglou’s work in the transfer market far more straightforward than his own attempts at squad building on a shoe-string.
And Postecoglou doesn’t mind admitting as much. He goes on: “It depends on the club’s set up. I’m fortunate here to have a great set up where I don’t have to stress about too many of the details. Other managers don’t have that luxury I guess.
“I have sympathy for every Premiership manager - it’s a tough role - irrespective of your background and irrespective of whether you’ve been in the job for a minute or you’ve been in the job for 30 years. It’s a tough gig, especially on days like today.
“So I have great respect and admiration for anybody in that role because I understand the daily pressures and the expectations that are put upon them. The one thing I feel we should all do as managers is let our work do the talking for us and I think David has done that.”
So much so, in fact, that Postecoglou believes the big punching Martindale could yet be in line for a far more heavyweight job at some point in the future. Asked why it is that Martindale has not already outgrown the Tony Macaroni Arena he said: “That’s because he continually puts himself down, mate. He’s the one who keeps saying, ‘No-one’s going to come for me!’
“But, from my perspective, like every manager you’ve got to look at the body of work they’ve done and you decide on that. He’s done a great job at Livingston whether he wants to move on or other people see that.
“The science of picking a manager is not that sophisticated, mate, depending on which club is making the decision.”
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