Ange, Martin and Brendan. Breaking new ground and good endings

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If you were around 20 years ago, you lived through an era when every time a manager in the English topflight came under pressure, we had to endure speculation Martin O’Neill would leave us to move back south.  We even had the Tory party leader urge Liverpool to appoint Martin!

These days., Ange Postecoglou’s name is sure to appear on betting lists whenever a vacancy appears.  The issue is also put into the public domain on occasions like yesterday, when Ange is back home in Australia and was asked about moving to England.

Ange responded correctly, “Celtic play in front of 60,000 people, we have the opportunity to win trophies and we’re in the Champions League. It’s a massive football club.”  I expect it would take an incredible offer to move him now (maybe something like Liverpool), specifically because he thinks – he thinks, not I think – he has only scratched the surface of what he could achieve at Celtic.

There is a glass ceiling here.  We are never going to win the Champions League without huge environment change.  It is possible, however, to go deeper into the tournament that we have gone before in its current guise.

Martin’s name will forever be sacred around these parts.  While Wim Jansen won the league for Celtic two years before he arrived, it was Martin who truly put us back on top.  Since then, we have never been the underdogs we were even at the start of this first season.  Five years into the job, Martin’s race was run at Celtic in every respect and he left for personal reasons, without an enticement from elsewhere.

There are two requirements necessary to achieve enduring legendary status: break new ground and when you leave, do so on good terms.  Four years ago, Brendan Rodgers had us eating out of his hand, but his abrupt departure means he would not be considered appropriate to make the Paradise Windfall Draw these days.

If Ange remains as successful as he is, someone will eventually put a £10m/yr offer in front of him and that will be the end of this era.  He has work to do to justify anything like that, as he said on Australian TV yesterday, “I keep saying to [the players]if they do what they do well then all this other stuff takes care of itself, whatever their ambitions or my ambitions may be.”  Within a couple of years, I believe Ange can do something very special here.

Martin is at Dalziel Park Hotel, Motherwell, this Saturday, 24 September, for a brunch, a Q&A and photos.  Tickets are £50 and available from Alan, 07970 716422.  Kick off 11:45am.

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  1. FRANKTERRY on 23RD SEPTEMBER 2022 11:39 AM

     

     

    This is a Celtic blog, if it means we have to offer new recruits or players resigning 10% more than clubs in England it’s a perfectly valid point.

  2. Oh you want me to sign a 5-year contract with the famous Glasgow Celtic at a salary 5 times my current salary? Ok hold on while I go online and check the Scottish tax rate.

  3. GP @ Tax Watching

     

     

    Our players pay 46% when they need to..

     

    We are not our friends in Govan / TFOD1.0

     

     

    Will impact our dealing with players in the future.

  4. Tom McLaughlin,

     

     

    You revert to type. Not an ounce of reasoning only dismissal without explanation.

     

     

    As for naivety, have you checked your comments this morning.

     

     

    Deary me.

  5. The depths to which the unionists will resort to discredit the Scottish Government get more and more desperate and hilarious by the day. Socialists my arse.

  6. TIMMY7_NOTED on 23RD SEPTEMBER 2022 11:39 AM

     

     

    Millions of self-employed people pay tax at the same rates as those on PAYE.

     

     

    John Terry might pay tax at 20% but I’ll bet very few if any Celtic players do

     

     

    You can bet that if there’s a difference between tax rates in England and Scotland agebts will negóciate using a net fee. Netto as agents used to say

  7. TOM MCLAUGHLIN on 23RD SEPTEMBER 2022 11:49 AM

     

    Oh you want me to sign a 5-year contract with the famous Glasgow Celtic at a salary 5 times my current salary? Ok hold on while I go online and check the Scottish tax rate.

     

     

    The first thing an agent will do when he’s negotiating the wages. Compare the net salary to other deals their player is being offered

  8. KK / Adrian Mole — playing to a very small gallery with all his Socialism pointing / shouting.

     

     

    He is struggling to live up to the level of Gary from Accounts.

     

    Lightweight to the point of floating off.

  9. HMRC have smartened up their act since John Terry was supposedly paying 20% tax.

     

     

    The huns on EBTs were paying less than that. How did that work out for them?

     

     

    Differential higher band income tax rates will be relevant to players, agents etc.

     

     

    To claim otherwise is either dim or dishonest.

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