Lucky Ange- Micky Beale’s spending gripe

Michael Beale has been speaking aloud about Celtic’s spending power.

The Ibrox boss seems to have a views on everything with Celtic’s transfer budget attracting his words of wisdom.

No one knows for certain but there are grounds for believing that John Lundstram and Kemar Roofe are the highest paid players in Scotland. Postecoglou prefers to spend his budget in a different manner with international scouting bringing a variety of emerging talents to Celtic.

Beale is a week into his first transfer window without spending any money but told The Scotsman that he doesn’t have the biggest budget in the country:

We don’t spend the most money in this country. When we were sat at Ibrox last week [after playing Celtic, it was said to me in the post-match press conference] ‘they’ve made three, are you going to make three …’ No, we will make what we think, but also they spend a lot more money than us. So Ange is a lucky man, because he has spent a lot of money. He’s a good coach, but he has spent a lot of money.

There is no magic or mystery to Postecoglou’s squad building.

Arriving at Celtic in June 2021 the first phase of his rebuild was funded by the transfer fees brought in from selling Kris Ajer and Odsonne Edouard for close to £30m.

Delivering Champions League football allowed the 2022 summer spend of close to £20 with Cameron Carter-Vickers and Jota costing £6m each with a further £3m spent on Daizen Maeda.

Ross Wilson has been in place at Ibrox since November 2019 but has chosen to spend his budget in different ways.

Money may be tight at Ibrox but on the pitch Celtic are in good health with almost all signings appearing to grow in value.

Last January Reo Hatate, Daizen Maeda and Matt O’Riley cost around £5m- the same sort of fee that Wilson spent to sign Ridvan Yilmaz in August.