Why there's a 'different dynamic' at Celtic following recent overhaul
The entire set-up behind the scenes at the club has been thrown up in the air by the parting of the ways with Dominic McKay following only two months in the official capacity of chief executive but the Australian’s consideration in acknowledging a changed emphasis is the overhaul of the football department.
Speaking before the announcement of McKay’s hasty exit, Postecoglou was at pains not to slight departees Odsonne Edouard and Ryan Christie, who left at the end of a transfer window for Crystal Palace and Bournemouth, weeks after Kristofer Ajer had headed to Brenford. All three had desired a change of scene for more than a year but, with 12 arrivals over the summer, the 56-year-old accepts he has an entire squad focussed on pushing the club on.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide Ad“I think it does,” he said of the outgoings and incomings remoulding the dynamic. “I wouldn’t say there were people here who didn’t want to be here, I would just say there was uncertainty, and wherever there is uncertainty it doesn’t help in trying to build something. I’m trying to talk to the group about the future and what we’re building and where we’re heading, and if there’s uncertainty about whether people are going to be a part of that...
“It’s something that affects the players themselves who might be thinking that way about their own futures, or they might not be sure on what the club’s stance on their future would be. Having gone through the window now, the players kind of know ‘right ok, here we are, we’re all in this building and we’re moving together’. I think that helps just moving forward to accelerate those things. I never sensed that the ones who left didn’t want to be here. While they were here, they gave everything they could, but when there is uncertainty it’s very hard to be committed to something beyond what is in front of you on that day.”
Postecoglou offers a surprise critique on the club’s dealings in the market, which in the final days of the window landed him three more players – in the form of Greek striker Giorgios Giakoumakis, Benfica loanee winger Jota and central defender Cameron Carter-Vickers, singed on a season loan from Tottenham Hotpsur – who could debut in the post-international break return fixture at home to Ross County.
“I think...12 which is probably too many in one window but it had to be done,” Postecoglou – who will be without forward Kyogo Furuhashi for a few weeks due to a knee injury – said. “There was a realisation that the team had sort of come to the end of the cycle and a new cycle needed to begin. It’s not something that’s unfamiliar to me. It’s been pretty consistent throughout my whole career that whenever I’ve gone in, either by design or default, I’ve had to make a fair few changes to squads that I’ve inherited. Obviously here it was quite evident to whoever was coming in that there was going to have to be a fairly big turnover of players. Even in Japan, I think by the time the second year came around – the year we won the championship – there were probably 18 or 19 new players in the squad. So it’s nothing that’s totally unusual.”