Former Celtic managers Ange Postecoglou and Ronnie Delia both got the sack at the weekend from Nottingham Forest and Atlanta United. Nobody likes to see anyone losing their job but when you consider the compensation they get paid it surely eases the blow.
Is managing a professional football team the best job in the World? If you’re successful you’re loved by the fans and if you’re sacked you get a pay off and generally you’re not too long out of a job. Big Ange has been sacked twice in recent months even after winning the Europa League with Spurs.
When current Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers replaced Ronnie Delia at Celtic it was the season that the rangers were promoted to the SPFL. The first time they would play in the top flight after the original rangers went out of business for failing to pay their taxes.
With Ronnie gone and Brendan in place and the Glasgow Derby scheduled in the football diary, full houses were back in vogue at Celtic Park. The Upper Lisbon Lion stand was back open and all was good. Brendan delivered treble after treble until he left for Leicester City without saying goodbye.
Dermot Desmond got his little black book out which it would seem has the number of more golf contacts than football ones. He called Neil Lennon and asked him to replace Brendan. He said yes but it would all end in tears during the Covid season from hell when all we got for forking out for our season tickets was a dodgy stream from Celtic TV. The dream of 10IAR disappeared before Big Ange appeared after Eddie Howe pulled out of the Celtic job at the last minute. Maybe he knew the Newcastle job was in the pipeline.
Ange delivered 5 trophies in two seasons and we all fell in love with his brand of attacking football but like Brendan and Eddie the lure of the EPL was too much for him to resist and off he went to London before we all got a surprise with the return of Brendan.
Earlier this year Celtic pushed Bayern Munich all the way before bowing out of the Champions League on a bitterly cold night matched by bitter disappointment as we left the stadium in Munich. In a German pub that night we all agreed it was a gallant effort and we would be back for another Champions League adventure.
How wrong we were, a Scottish Cup Final defeat to Aberdeen, failure to qualify for this seasons Champions League, the board deciding that our money would be better off held in a bank vault for a rainy day instead of strengthening the team. There are many other problems festering at the club and none of us have any idea of who is signing the players who the manager clearly is not happy with.
Now we see similarities between Ronnie Delia and Brendan Rodgers. As Celtic managers they have both witnessed fan protests and will both manage teams at Celtic Park in the Europa League with plenty of empty seats. Celtic Park is no longer a fortress for visiting teams on a European Night. It has now become a stadium where no team fears coming to and Motherwell proved that recently when they pushed Celtic all the way before going down 3-2 to a last minute winner from Maeda.
It would not come as a surprise if Dermot Desmond was on the phone to Ange asking him to come back to Celtic in the summer when Brendan’s 3 years are up and he sails into the sunset hoping that his reputation as a top football manager is not too damaged.
The football merry go round keeps going around with managers getting on and off but sadly some fans have had enough of modern football and have decided to get off themselves some have been out priced while others have just had enough of being taking for granted for too long.
Andrew Milne is Editor of More than 90 Minutes & Host of the Celtic Soul Podcast
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