Is Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou running out of time to make good on summer aim?

The path of least resistance has never held any appeal for Ange Postecoglou.

The Celtic manager – a self acknowledged footballing purist – could be considered a Panglossian figure. Of sorts. He makes it his mission to look for the signpost proclaiming ‘best of all possible worlds’ and drives towards it. The difference with Voltaire’s character being that this is regardless of how exacting that might make matters. Case in point is the ideal scenario he set out for summer transfer plans. In the form of the timescale for reshaping his player pool set out as soon as the championship was snaffled a month ago. A prize that earned the whopping bounty of direct entry to the Champions League group stages.

Postecoglou determined in mid-May it was crucial to derive full value from that development through enjoying a month tuning up a fully-augmented squad. A high bar for a club where swift transfer activity has so often seemed anathema. “Our priority is to try to get that done early so that, come pre-season, with getting straight into the group stage, we’ve a really good opportunity to work with the group without the pressure of competition,” the Australian said then. “It would be great if we could have all the new players in by that time. Sometimes these things are taken out of your hands a little bit, but our intent is to try to get our business done early. We know what we need, we’ve already identified the areas we need to improve, so we’ve already started work on that.”

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Celtic will return for pre-season training next Monday, those who have been playing internationals then joining up as a 10-day training camp in Austria is embarked on come July 1. Yet, as it stands, the £6million deal struck with Tottenham Hostpur for Cameron Carter-Vickers is the only business the Scottish champions have completed. It can be assumed Portuguese winger Jota will follow the US international in committing his future to Celtic following an outstanding loan season. A £6.5m permanent move from Benfica is now expected to be announced any day ...

Ange Postecoglou told Celtic supporters his team would be "bigger and better" next season but they have yet to make significant transfer market strides towards that.(Photo by Craig Foy / SNS Group)Ange Postecoglou told Celtic supporters his team would be "bigger and better" next season but they have yet to make significant transfer market strides towards that.(Photo by Craig Foy / SNS Group)
Ange Postecoglou told Celtic supporters his team would be "bigger and better" next season but they have yet to make significant transfer market strides towards that.(Photo by Craig Foy / SNS Group)

That, though, still doesn’t take Postecoglou any closer to the strengthening that would make good on his trophy day pledge to fans that in the coming season his team would be “bigger and better”. It is understood he has earmarked three areas for bolstering: looking to add a left-back, central midfielder and attacker/winger. The pursuit of goalkeeper Benjamin Siegrist can be considered an added extra.

Argentinian full-back Alexandro Bernabei has been targeted for the full-back position, while the interest in Brazilian midfielder Vinicius Souza fits the bill for an area where options have been reduced by the departures of Tom Rogic and Nir Bitton. Exits that, in Postecoglou’s own words, have left him “one short” in that department. All sorts of names have been bandied around for adding competition for Kyogo Furuhashi, Giorgos Giakoumakis and Daizen Maeda in the final third, but no deals on that front appear near completion. There are no immediate pressures for acquiring new arrivals. Not when Celtic’s first competitive game doesn’t arrive until their title defence begins at home to Aberdeen on July 31. But Postecoglou elected to set his alarm to a different timing for signings. That goes off inside the next fortnight.

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