HEEL. Heel. Heel! Good boy, have a biscuit. No, that’s not Ange Postecoglou training Jota to perform his latest trick at Lennoxtown in an attempt to distract himself from speculation linking the Celtic manager with the vacant Leeds United job. Nor has your correspondent rescued some pooch from the pound. That’s the call to loyal obedience from my handy Tesco Clubcard keyring.
After realising I wouldn’t, I couldn’t, make it to Christmas without replacing my decrepit, unholy, holey socks, I purchased a multipack from F&F and was rewarded with not only a discount but a free packet of biscuits to boot.
I should be on to this flagrant courting of loyalty. It’s the same with children. There’s that moment in parenthood when, after months, years even, of forlornly calling out their name, waiting, calling again a little louder, waiting, until finally bawling so loudly that, far less succumbing to obedience, a rupture in space-time causes them to cascade towards you, finally you realise that some reward – biscuits do work; this develops into hard cash eventually, I’m told – is the only way to gain such loyalty. Having successfully implemented this method on my eldest, it is by no coincidence that his portrait dangles merrily on my key ring next to my Clubcard.
So big business and families alike rely on loyalty, and their reward systems help to ensure a well-oiled economy. Football clubs have hardly missed this trick and are able to combine the two. Celtic, for example, have been bandying the “Celtic family” line for years now to galvanise their supporters under the banner of paid-up season-ticket holders – and their reward is that faithful revenue stream has been trickled into the team.
This ethos feeds into the mantra of the club, too. Every fan loves a he’s-one-of-our-own story: a Callum McGregor coming through the youth system, reaching the first team, playing under several managers and managing to stick around; enjoying success, facing up to the odd setback, coming back stronger; becoming club captain, lifting silverware, breaking club records. That kind of loyalty is the foundation of the club – it stitches different eras together into a cohesive whole.
But what happens when a Kieran Tierney comes along? Rising on the same trajectory as McGregor, the full-back was clearly a cut above even the best of his colleagues and it was practically inexorable that he should move into another career stratosphere altogether in joining Premier League giants Arsenal. Cue claims of treachery from some of the hardcore members of the Celtic family. Like most issues today, however, a move on this scale should be viewed less as a binary option and more as a decision to be weighed up.
Just as the scales at Tesco don’t lie, no sense of brand loyalty is going to outweigh the price on the ticket for a bunch of bananas if you’re paying twice as much as you would elsewhere. Doubling, trebling, quadrupling and more a player’s salary is only going to tip the scales in one direction, and Tierney, whose move earned Celtic a record transfer fee, was absolutely right to go.
So what about this proposed move to Leeds for Celtic manager Postecoglou? Think of it as scanning your messages at the till in the supermarket: Premier League club, beep; multi-million-pound budget, beep; chance to compete against some of the best players and managers in the world, beep; intense rivalry against one of the country’s biggest clubs, beep; opportunities to win trophies and titles… opportunity to win trophies and titles… *Could a manager come to till one, please?*
Postecoglou could easily look to his Parkhead predecessor for a warning over leaving a club like Celtic for a so-called sleeping giant languishing in the lower reaches of the Premier League. Yes, Brendan Rodgers turned things around on his arrival at the King Power Stadium, steering them clear of the relegation zone to finish ninth after replacing Claude Puel in February 2019, and in his first full season achieving a fifth-place finish and qualifying for the Europa League, a feat he repeated the following season while throwing in an FA Cup success.
But a slide down to eighth place last season and the club’s flirtation with the bottom three places this term is surely leaving the Northern Irishman pining for the heady days of chasing every title going at his boyhood club north of the border.
Yes, that tip to club loyalty was perhaps his undoing in terms of legacy after his flight in the night to Leicester four years ago. Having professed his green-and-white bloodline on numerous occasions throughout his silver-soaked tenure, Rodgers’ hasty dash south was marked as a betrayal by many. At what cost? You might ask. Well, loyalty works both ways, and there is perhaps a perception of Rodgers as an opportunist. He’s also lost a lot of credit from an erstwhile adoring fanbase in Glasgow, a pity given his incredible achievements in his two and a half years in the east end.
So what does Postecoglou owe Celtic? Well, the club took something of a gamble on the former Australia national team manager. They gave him his first job in Europe, an ambition he has not hidden, after some success with Yokohama F Marinos in Japan’s J-League. The supporters stood behind him during a rocky transition period when “Ange-ball” was first being implemented at Lennoxtown, presumably on a biscuits-for-obedience basis. And, crucially, the board have continued to back him in the transfer market on the basis that his signings have been successful: another win-win loyalty scheme.
At some point, Postecoglou will have to move on, and he’ll want it to be on his terms and when his stock is high. If interest from Leeds United is a test of his loyalty to Celtic, however, the Parkhead board need to learn their lessons from losing Rodgers to Leicester and dig deep into the club’s coffers to lure him to stay – and I’m not sure biscuits will cut it.
They should offer a substantial reward scheme that will encourage him to stick around much longer.
