Celtic’s excitement at announcing Neil Lennon’s replacement after a 106 day search left many questions unanswered.
Ange Postecoglou didn’t have any Celtic kit to put on for his video call as an excited Gerry McCulloch returned to the screens at 9am this morning.
It seemed that getting someone in place was all that mattered with the important bits all missing from the club announcement.
There was NO mention of a start date for Postecoglou.
There was NO mention of his contract, recent Celtic managers have been on 12 month rolling deals, 11 months into his Brendan Rodgers upgraded to a four year contract.
There was NO mention of any backroom staff joining Postecoglou, it looks like he’ll be inheriting his backroom staff like Neil Lennon did.
And there was NO mention of a Director of Football/Sporting Director to tackle all of the neglected infrastructure issues that Peter Lawwell created. Head of Football Operations Nick Hammond left in March.
Postecoglou really is walking into a club in transition, or as others would say turmoil.
In three weeks’ time Dom McKay will be on his own in his first football job, discussing the new manager he was high on froth and light on details, it was corporate talk that many fans will see through.
The in-coming CEO told the club website:
In all my discussions with him to date, I’ve been really impressed by his enthusiasm for Celtic, and his keenness to work with me to modernise and develop the footballing structures and the non-footballing structures to make sure we are the successful club that we need to be for the generation ahead.
His experience at the international level, having taken Australia to World Cups is hugely impressive, as is his experience of winning both in Australia and Japan, so I’m excited about securing a winning manager and in securing someone who wants to drive forward the club in a way that I think everyone will be really proud about.
We’ve spent a lot of time chatting through the playing side, the coaching side and the footballing operations side.
Now comes the tricky but, assembling a team with Champions League qualifiers that can bring in £30m just 40 days away, and no start date for the Australian manager currently in Japan awaiting a Work Permit and UEFA clearance.