Ange Postecoglou has won the total trust of the Celtic board with his transfer dealings and knows they will back him again to put the finishing touches to his squad for a crack at the Champions League.
The Australian has been delighted with the club’s early business, in paying out large sums to sign Jota and Cameron Carter-Vickers on permanent contracts along with Alexandro Bernabei and Benji Siegrist, and believes it has been a major show of intent from the champions.
Postecoglou has previously confirmed he still wants to add another couple of players to his squad and he is well aware he will get the financial backing, like he has since he took up the job last summer, with the club set to return to the group stage of the Champions League for the first time in five years. Lommel midfielder Vinicius Souza is amongst a list of summer targets but that is now looking increasingly unlikely with strong interest from across Europe.
“The whole club has been really supportive of me,” the Celtic manager acknowledged. With Michael (Nicholson) and Chris (McKay) and the board and the key decision-makers, I think there is a fair bit of trust.
“I had to earn that trust last year, particularly in the first window. I think they feel like they understand me and what I’m trying to do. That makes things a lot easier.
“It’s not really a battle for me to try to convince people. I’m totally understanding of the kind of markets we need to be looking at and financially where we are so I think there is an alignment there within the whole club.
“That’s what I’m saying. We’re not stressed about our situation. We will bring in one or two but I’ll make sure they are the right ones.”
Celtic have paid out more than £12 million for Jota and Carter-Vickers but Postecoglou is adamant that it is money well spent and they will be worth a lot more in the long run.
He stated: “Yeah I think so. I don’t think that was ever in doubt, the club has supported me from the moment I’ve come in. You saw that in January, we brought in four players in January pretty quickly, and I think that was a real sort of pivotal point in our season and our attempt to win the league. They’ve done the same now.
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“The club understands the vision we have, what we want to create and what we want to build. We’re still in the building phase, and with Jota and Cam, it’s not just about that we’ve got two quality players in permanently, but we know what they’re like as people and we know they really fit with the culture.
“I think the best is ahead of them. They’re both at a good age where we’re going to get some improvement out of them.”
Celtic continue their Austrian pre-season tour by taking on Rapid Vienna in the Allianz Stadium. Postecoglou is likely to bring in some of his international stars for this game but he admitted the likes of Yosuke Ideguchi and James McCarthy are all desperate to break through into his starting XI this time around.
Postecoglou claimed: “For him and guys like James McCarthy who probably didn’t get a lot of game time, this is a window of opportunity for them to get game time as a group. The ones who came in (in Wednesday's friendly) are the ones who came in a week earlier, so they’ve had a decent week of training. The other boys, their first training session was literally here. It will take a bit of time for the others to get up to speed."
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