Ange Postecoglou starts from a perfect standpoint at Celtic.
Things can’t possibly get any worse than they were last season.
How do you beat blowing the chance to make history and toppling your manager?
Or having banners displayed about shooting board members and needing the police to stand between outraged fans wielding metal crush barriers and fleeing players after a defeat? Nobody ever launched a transformation and won a trophy on the strength of a press conference.
But Postecoglou gave an immediately impressive account of himself on Friday afternoon at his inaugural meeting with the media in Scotland.
His answers disarmed anyone who thought he might have been perturbed about being second choice behind the evasive
Eddie Howe.
“How do you know I wasn’t fifth choice?” was his way of ending that line of conversation.
Was Scotland and a forthcoming Champions League qualifier for starters a higher level of engagement than he was used to after working in Australia and Japan?
“I have coached at the World Cup finals,” came the next show stopper.
Best of all was his observation that his opening remarks were “all words”.
But he backed himself to provide the justification for Celtic’s faith in him because of what he did on the park and not in the press room.
And that insists if he was averse to pressure he would be in a different line of work. There has been a self-confessed mixed response to Ange’s appointment.
He was factually correct though when he said 100 per cent of Celtic supporters wanted him to be a success.
Listening to Postecoglou for half an hour actually prompted the thought that Celtic, with new chief executive Dominic McKay admitting he was out to make his own mark on the club, had better satisfy the manager’s demands of them in terms of an appropriate level of backing.
Or else he might be the one to end their professional marriage on the grounds of breach of promise.
In between the time-honoured platitudes about being humbled by his new post there came across a man not to be trifled with, which got his new life here off to an intriguing start.
So long as everyone understands the reason why television moved the derby against Rangers at Ibrox to Sunday, August 29 on the same day as Postecoglou’s official unveiling is because that rivalry is all that matters and will ultimately be the one thing by which he will be judged.
