Celtic's Ange Postecoglou offers revealing insight into club's much-maligned coaching team as he lands award

Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou has revealed his much-derided backroom staff have been central to the renaissance across his tenure in working more closely with the players than him.

Ange Postecoglou is pictured with the Glen's Manager of the Month award for October along with backroom staff John Kennedy, Stevie Woods and Stephen McManus. (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)

Praising their part in his first manager of the month award the Celtic manager took the unusual step of demanding his coaching coterie appear with him in the pictures to accompany his landing of the cinch Premiership accolade for October.

And the 56-year-old deployed a heavy line in sarcasm in explaining his confounding expectations that it was a necessity he recruited his own men after arriving in Scotland alone in June. On that score, and all others, Postecoglou has proved his own man - despite the Celtic support initially being enraged over John Kennedy and Gavin Strachan retaining roles despite being implicated in the collapse under the deposed Neil Lennon as the quest for a record 10th title ended in ignomy.

“It’s working well [with the backroom staff] and that’s why I wanted the guys in the photo,” the Celtic manager said. “Unfortunately, Gavin Strachan had a family commitment and couldn’t make it. But that’s the main coaching staff with me in the photo, the ones who work alongside me, and they have been hugely important to me and what we want to build. There is the rest of the staff, the sports science team and the analysts and I have enjoyed working with them.

“I know people have been a little bit anxious about my well-being coming in on my own without a crew of people to support me. But I have never felt the need for that and I have enjoyed working with this group of people. I love the fact they want to embrace the direction that we want to take the team into. That sort of stuff energises me. I said when I walked through those doors that my first and most important task was to get people to believe in me, rather than my ideas and what I want to do. That’s what I have tried to do and if it wasn’t working then we wouldn’t be getting the results, or performances. Ultimately, the rest of the staff spend more time with the players than I do. It’s right that they get the recognition as much as I do.”

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers. If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.