Michael Stewart has delivered a blistering attack on the Celtic board to deliver a new manager in time for Champions League qualifiers.
By November, or earlier, last season it was clear that Neil Lennon wasn’t upto the job, in December a managerial review was announced with Lennon walking away in February after another painful defeat to Ross County.
It took until the last part of June for Ange Postecoglou to check in at Lennoxtown, a fortnight before his squad has to be named for the qualifier against Midtjylland the Australian has a squad thin on numbers, quality and experience.
All of the right messages have been sent out since Postecoglou arrived at the club but writing in The Sun, Stewart believes that too much time was wasted chasing other managerial targets.
You cannot emphasise enough just how much of a shambles that process was from start to finish. Celtic were in a bad position, but the time wasted on the pursuit of Eddie Howe has made it even worse.
Why let him leave you waiting for an answer for so long? But also, why let him dictate what would potentially happen with the entire football structure? From the moment Celtic agreed to wait for Howe, they were playing catch-up in so many areas.
Postecoglou has a good CV and is well thought of. You will struggle to find someone in Australia who doesn’t rate him. He is lauded.
New chief executive Dominic McKay last week hailed Postecoglou as a winner and spoke about how happy Celtic were to have him. Judging by his reputation, this could turn out to be an inspired appointment.
Which begs the question: Why didn’t they make their move for him in February when Neil Lennon left?
The delay means there is now even more pressure on Postecoglou to deliver results in these European ties when, instead, he could have been in months ago, assessing everything and putting plans in place. Now Postecoglou has only a couple of weeks to assemble a team for some of the biggest games of the season.
So far Postecolglou has added Leigh Griffiths and Osaze Urhoghide to the squad that he inherited.
Scott Brown and Jack Hendry have left with major doubts over the futures of Odsonne Edouard, Kris Ajer, Ryan Christie and Olivier Ntcham.
