Having made the journey over to Madrid, as I travelled south to Malaga to head home from the Spanish capital I was keeping a close eye on Twitter to get some snippets from the AGM on Friday morning.
Celtic’s Champions League adventure was well and truly over and now it is all about looking forward and what is to come for the Scottish champions.
The competition was a real learning curve for an inexperienced Hoops side that has a lot of young talent amongst its ranks.
Ange Postecoglou’s side had to turn attention swiftly back to domestic matters and got there in the end against Dundee United with late goals coming from Kyogo Furuhashi and Liel Abada to secure a 4-2 victory after a first half brace from Sead Haksabanovic.
The players now have full focus on domestic football and will need to once again be successful to take the team back to Europe’s premier competition next season and go out and show that they have learned lessons.
It was music to my ears to hear Ange Postecoglou state: “We will need to be more active in the transfer market. This will be uncomfortable for some. I know fans live to have their heroes but to achieve at this level we will need to be much more active.”
Celtic manager Ange Postecoglu REUTERS/Russell Cheyne
The business model at Celtic for many years is to have sold assets then reinvest the money into the team. However, for too long that reinvestment has been well off the mark with it being key that whoever departs the club at any time is properly replaced.
Postecoglou is two steps ahead of the game, maybe more, in this regard. The Hoops manager seems to always have his fingers on the pulse. So far his recruitment record at the club has been exemplarily.
Working alongside Mark Lawwell will hopefully bring some stability to the club in years to come with a clear recruitment policy but with both men working with each other there is confidence that they will get it right in the next two windows and have Celtic set to take on further challenges ahead.
