There is no comparison between Celtic and Brighton & Hove Albion in terms of the size of the clubs and Ange Postecoglou will be in no rush to leave the huge job he holds in Glasgow, according to Paul Lambert.
Postecoglou’s impact in 15 months at Celtic has dramatically enhanced his profile and reputation and he has been quoted as a possible contender for the Brighton position since Graham Potter left for Chelsea last week.
Nottingham Forest’s Steve Cooper, Kjetil Knutsen of Bodo/Glimt, the Italian coach Roberto de Zerbi, Luton Town’s Nathan Jones and the Swansea City manager Russell Martin are all at shorter odds to take over at the Falmer Stadium but the bookmakers have Postecoglou at just 10-1 to switch to the Premier League. Some Celtic supporters are anxious given that the club’s last truly successful manager, Brendan Rodgers, left for Leicester City in 2019 when they initially assumed he would remain committed to Celtic.
Postecoglou is only in the early weeks of his second campaign in Scotland, though, and has given no indication that he is interested in a move any time soon. Lambert, who won four league titles, two Scottish Cups and two League Cups between 1998 and 2004, and was in the team at their 2003 Uefa Cup final, said it was inevitable the 57-year-old Greek-Australian would be linked with other jobs if he continues to excel at Celtic.
“I think that will go hand in hand with him because of how well he is doing here,” said Lambert, talking at the launch of a book on former manager Wim Jansen yesterday. “I don’t know the ins and outs of it and if Ange has said anything, but if you are talking about size of clubs they [Brighton] can’t compare with Celtic. There is no comparison. You can compare the leagues, without a doubt, but the job he has got here is huge. He has got European football here and hopefully the club can go and continue getting Champions League, can continue getting points on the board, can continue qualifying, because that will entice bigger and better players to come if they see the club getting Champions League football.
“If he keeps doing well here then it will be up to him to make a decision if teams in England or in Europe come for him. But if he manages to maintain the success he’s had here he might not want to leave.
“It’s better to be linked with jobs than having fans calling for your head. You’d rather be told you are doing great than folk saying there’s a car waiting for you out the front! I think he loves it here. You can go to another club and all of a sudden things don’t work and you are back to square one. At the moment he’s got everything rocking here. Keeping it going is easier said than done.”
The next chapter will be written in Warsaw on Wednesday evening when Postecoglou aims to get the first Champions League points of his managerial career when Celtic take on Ukrainian champions Shakhtar Donetsk in neutral Poland. There was deserved praise for having a go against European champions Real Madrid in matchday one last Tuesday but after a 3-0 reverse they need to avoid defeat against Shakhtar to start building a challenge in group F.
To Lambert, a Champions League winner with Borussia Dortmund in 1997, the key to qualification from any group is avoiding defeat in the three away games. “I think you have got to get results, get something, away from home. You have to do that. If Celtic go to Poland on Wednesday and lose that is six points they are down already [to Shakhtar, who won their opener 4-1 at RB Leipzig]. I think they have to get points away from home. The home games will take care of themselves because of the atmosphere and the way it is. Leipzig are hitting a bit of form with Marco [Rose] going in there as manager. I always thought Donetsk would be a danger because it is in another [neutral] country and they are unknown. I always thought that would be a dangerous game. Real Madrid was the bells and whistles game. Everybody knows who you are playing against. But Donetsk will be a danger.” There were some similarities between Postecoglou and the late Jansen, said Lambert, in that both were little-known when they arrived at Celtic and faced initial scepticism and criticism before proving to be high class coaches.
Jansen spent around £2 million to bring Lambert from Dortmund late in 1997, midway through what would prove to be the season when they won the title and denied Rangers ten-in-a row.
“I didn’t play well in the beginning, I was poor,” said Lambert. “I couldn’t get a grip of it. We were playing Dundee United in the League Cup final and I went to Wim and said ‘if you’re thinking about playing me in the cup final don’t do it because I’m not playing well enough’. Morten Wieghorst was playing well at that time and Craig [Burley] was also in midfield. He said ‘I will get back to you’ and he returned and said ‘you’re right’.
“That was my first real encounter with him and what I also remember is that he said to me [when he became a regular starter] ‘if you see something on the pitch then change it, don’t look to me to change it because you’re the one that’s out there’. That’s how good he was. He never lost his rag. A lot of the lads had so much respect for what he had done as a player. His CV was the length of your arm. When you look at what he had done — World Cup finals and everything — the respect was always there.”
• Lambert was speaking at the launch of Wim Jansen’s book “Mastermind”, by Yoeri van den Busken. Jansen was Celtic manager in the 1997-98 season and won the league title to stop Rangers from reaching ten-in-a-row. He passed away in January, aged 75.
Shakhtar Donetsk v Celtic
Wednesday, September 14 Municipal Stadium, Warsaw
Kick-off: 5.45pm
TV: BT Sport 4
