Biggest fanbase, biggest budget, biggest club- Ange fires straight back at his critical peers

Ange Postecoglou has taken some of the sniping at Celtic’s success as a badge of honour.

Micky Beale reckons that the hoops boss is a lucky manager while David Martindale put on his economics hat to reveal that Celtic have 35 times the budget Livingston have with one of Postecoglou’s players earning the same as his entire squad.

There is no magic money tree at Celtic Park. The ground itself is the biggest in the country which costs a lot of money to maintain, more fans watch Celtic than any other club which attracts Adidas and other firms who reward the club for the spending power of their fans.

Postecoglou carries more responsibility than any other manager. Two years ago with the same favourable circumstances Neil Lennon led Celtic into a disastrous season with Celtic winning just 22 of their 38 matches.

If Celtic beat Livingston tonight it will match that total of victories after just 24 games. If they fail to win Postecoglou will get more criticism than any other boss in the country!

Responding to those critics the Celtic boss told The Sun:

I don’t mind people saying we have the biggest budget because we have the biggest fanbase and we are the biggest club.

People forget that money is on the back of supporters who don’t have a lot of money and choose to spend a significant portion of it on this football club.

My role is not to get their money and stick it in the bank. It’s to get their money and reinvest it in the thing they love. That’s my responsibility, why we do what we do.

If people are saying we are the biggest club in the land then I don’t think that’s something we need to be embarrassed about. That’s who we are. I guess my role in that is to maximise that.

Just having the money and not spending it wisely would have people saying, ‘they have the biggest budget but they waste it’.

If people are saying we have the biggest budget and are spending it well then I’m not sure they’re achieving their goal in saying we have some unfair advantage.

No manager has ever had a bigger rebuilding job than the one Postecoglou inherited in the summer of 2021, over the course of one season he effectively brought in nine new starters to win the title with just Callum McGregor and Greg Taylor surviving from Lennon’s handover.

During the January transfer window Celtic brought in more money than the rest of the SPFL Premiership by selling Josip Juranovic to Union Berlin, that fee was used to bring in four new players with a further fee expected from the sale of Giorgos Giakoumakis.