Ange Posteoglou has been speaking to Australian Sports broadcaster, Gerard Whateley on his time at Celtic so fat and he’s absolutely nailed it when it comes to the Celtic fans embracing him.
Gerard kicked off the 20-minute conversation with Ange by playing a clip from the Celtic support singing ‘Last Christmas’ but with Ange’s name at the end of it. [Teesfortims are selling a very nice Christmas tee to that effect, FYI!]
Asking how he’s managed to win over the Celtic support, the Hoops boss revealed his theory about Celtic fans not being dictated to by the media or anyone else on who they were going to support and if they were going to embrace him. He’s got it spot on.
“I’ve been embraced pretty much from day one, which wasn’t an easy proposition, I was literally an unknown” Ange told Whateley.
“I just got the feeling Celtic supporters were not going to be told who they’re supposed to embrace and who not to
“The more people were painting me as this unknown that shouldn’t be where I am, the more they took personal offence to it and said, ‘no, he’s one of ours’.”
Ange is absolutely correct, but he’s also doing himself a disservice.
The way the Celtic board handled the situation of our hunt for a new manager was nothing short of farcical.
When Ange’s name popped up straight after Eddie Howe pulled out at the eleventh hour, many fans were, at first, disgruntled. But as Celtic fans tend to practice, they did their homework on the Australian from clips, to articles and books and pretty soon we were all on board.
Since Ange has come in, he’s been nothing but straight forward with the fans, and they appreciate that. The former Socceroos boss doesn’t deal in cliches or deflection, he takes everything head on – not in a confrontational way – he always applies logic to what’s going on around him.
The Celtic fans are desperate to see Ange succeed in Glasgow and if he can continue this rebuild, we have no doubt he can gat there.
