Maximise his opportunities- Ange opens up on painful Celtic departure

Ange Postecoglou has opened up on the emotions and business decisions involved in agreeing to Union Berlin’s offer for Josip Juranovic.

After less than 18 months the defender is on the brink of moving to the Bundesliga, completing a rapid rise from the Croatian League to Poland, onto the SPFL then Germany.

Throw in playing in the Champions League and a World Cup semi-final appearance and it is an incredible career story for the 28-year-old.

Two years ago Jeremy Frimpong moved to Bayer Leverkusen after a similar timespan but the situation that Juranovic leaves behind is far different to the shambles under the watch of Neil Lennon and Peter Lawwell.

In the dark days of 2021 a deadline day loan move for Jonjoe Kenny was the sticking plaster to cover for the departures of Frimpong and Hatem Abd Elhamed.

Alistair Johnston is already at Celtic and settled, looking the part after four appearances with Tony Ralston already showing that he is second choice to no-one.

Reflecting on Juranovic’s impeding exit, the Daily Record reports Postecoglou saying:

I said at the AGM we have just got to be really agile and aggressive in the transfer market if we want to make the gains we want to make. I get that it is unsettling and disconcerting, particularly for our supporters, because they love these players, and I totally understand that.

But my role is to try to make decisions that I think are best for us and our continued growth as a football team, and realising when an opportunity comes along we have to be ready to take it.

That’s what we have done with Josip. I don’t think there needs to be winners and losers out of this. I can’t question Josip’s contribution, he has been fantastic. Josip has absolutely loved his time here and he will remember it fondly and he gets an opportunity to do further things in his career and for his family. He’s been given permission to travel and he’ll have a medical with Union Berlin.

I assume that if all goes well then he’ll move. I think he’s been fantastic, I’ve loved working with Josip. He’s been a really popular member of the dressing room, he’s been a key contributor last year to what was a very, very important season, in the context of what had happened the season before.

The fact we had to rebuild the team and get back to where we wanted to be in terms of champions then he was a key component of that. With all of the lads, I’m constantly in dialogue with them about themselves and their careers and people have to appreciate Josip is 28-years-old but he hasn’t really got to the highest level until late in his career.

He just wants to maximise his opportunities, to be honest. I agree with him. That’s what all of us have in our careers, a limited time and we want to take opportunities. He leaves here as a fantastic player and as somebody who contributed to what was a really important season for us.

I certainly wish him well and I hope he goes over there and kills it. He’s very well respected within our dressing room and will be missed but that is the nature of football.

It seems like a fee of £7.5m is being reported for Juranovic with Legia Warsaw on a cut above the £2.5m that they got for the defender in August 2021.