Ange Postecoglou reckons the bookies would have happily taken anyone’s money who wanted to bet on the Aussie managing 100 games as Celtic manager.
But he’ll reach that milestone at home to Hearts on Wednesday night with one Premiership title and two League Cups in the bag, and is the favourite to add at least another Championship as well as a Scottish Cup to his collection as he approaches the end of his second full campaign in the Parkhead hot-seat.
While every Celtic, and for that matter Rangers, manager will be judged on how full the trophy cabinet is at the end of each season, that’s not what motivates Postecoglou. He accepts that those are necessary if he wants to keep his job long term, but he gets his kicks from seeing how his squad has evolved and the style in which they win those prizes. That gives him more job satisfaction than seeing the green and white ribbons on the silverware.
“I guess 100 games is fairly significant,” he said. “It would have been fairly long odds when I took the job that I’d reach it, so I guess that’s something. I haven’t taken a job and thought I wasn’t going to do well but I’ve said a few times, that’s the responsibility you have being at this football club, you understand that tangible success in terms of trophies is an expectation.
“What we’ve achieved in just over 18 months, 20 months, whatever it is, has been the most pleasing part. We’re really well down the track in terms of playing the football and being the team I want us to be, which is great. It means I can keep accelerating this and make us a more compelling football team. So that’s where I get the most satisfaction, albeit the the success or the trophies are the key part and the key cornerstone for any manager at any football club, particularly this one. But the kind of football we’ve played is the thing that’s pleased me the most.
"No manager lives in isolation. We all work with people and we all have organisations that we work for. There's no manager that will sit down and say 'I will be here.' It' not our decision sometimes. That's why I;ve consistently said that I don't think about those kind of things.
"What I think about is my responsibility at the moment which is to produce a football team that brings success to this football club, one that the fans can be proud of. Beyond that, anything that happens is irrelevant to what's most important."
READ NEXT:
