The Ange Postecoglou Celtic transfer spending myth

In a way, Rangers boss Michael Beale has a point. Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou is fortunate.

He is fortunate in that he took over the club at a time when a rebuild was not only possible but absolutely required.

He is fortunate in that he has been embraced, by the hierarchy and the fans, in such a way that allows him to impart his philosophy deeply and at more than one level of the club's ecosystem.

Perhaps more to the point, he is fortunate because has been supported swiftly and decisively in his endeavours with early manoeuvres in the transfer market.

But 'lucky because he's spent a lot'? To that, I'd say there is spending money and then there is spending money.

Let's take a closer look to see which one Postecoglou's tenure actually falls under...

Notes: Loan players are not included in either the 'in' or 'out' lists in the graphics below unless a recorded loan fee could be attributed. Columns may contain players who left for free, this is usually to reflect their first-team squad status.

Summer 21-22

"How best to sum this all up, then?" I wrote in our post-transfer window analysis at the time. "Postecoglou has been backed with numbers, but not quickly enough. He has also been backed with a decent amount of funding, but whether that money has been spent on the correct type of players remains to be seen. Make no mistake, this rebuild must continue."

In retrospect, this was the window that gave Celtic Kyogo Furuhashi, Giorgos Giakoumakis, Joe Hart, Carl Starfelt, Liel Abada and Josip Juranovic; the crux of the team that won the double.

It also gave them Cameron Carter-Vickers and Jota, albeit they are not included in this window due to theirs being loan deals.

Perhaps most notably, the club's transfer fees received for Kristoffer Ajer and Odsonne Edouard essentially ensured Postecoglou's rebuild could continue. In actual fact - as we'll see in the next few sections - it has virtually funded the entirety of his first three windows.

Winter 21-22

Acquiring Matt O'Riley and Reo Hatate for a combined £3m or so will surely go down as one of, if not the, best January windows the club has ever had. No real exits meant it was a net spend for the window but not overall.

Summer 22-23

A 'transfer window for the ages' as our analysis of this window by TCW columnist Alan Morrison termed it. This one ensured Postecoglou signed Carter-Vickers and Jota permanently and for the largest outlays so far in his tenure.

Daizen Maeda completed his own permanent move while more than £3m was spent on left-back Alexandro Bernabei and free agent deals concluded for Benjamin Siegrist and Aaron Mooy as well as taking advantage of the Russia situation to sign Sead Haksabanovic at a cut-price too.

The exits were largely free transfers - Christopher Jullien's £885,000 move to Montpellier and Ben Doak's £600,000 Liverpool transfer the main exceptions - but still the overall net spend is in the black despite the significant outlay for incomings.

Winter 22-23*

* as at Jan 10

Finally we reach the stage where Postecoglou has actually spent some money.

Tomoki Iwata is not listed because his initial deal is a loan but the free transfer of Yuki Kobayashi and the deal for Alistair Johnston with no outgoings as yet just pushes the spending into the red for the first time since Postecoglou's arrival.

Overall

All of these players for £2.6m is... impressive, no? Postecoglou is hardly PSG-ing his way to dominance.

Now the main caveats to all this are the lack of clarification over exact agent fees and more crucially the accompanying wage bills.

In his recent social media thread published with the club accounts, football finance expert Kieran Maguire's comparative analysis suggested that Celtic are hardly overpowering their rivals with sheer spending power in that arena anyway.

Indeed Maguire pointed out that while the champions do spend more on wages they also employ more full-time and part-time staff and pay out more in director fees too. He also noted that Rangers' 'total player cost' amounted to a significantly higher outlay than Celtic's (£55m to £43m).

"I know the areas I’d like to strengthen but I think it’s going to take one, two, three windows to get who I want," Beale said in that same interview we quoted at the beginning. 

Ange Postecoglou has known exactly where he wants to strengthen and - to varying degrees - has been getting who he wants since his very first window.

But it hasn't been through simply splashing the cash. In fact, thanks only to the recent signing of Johnston, it's taken him until his fourth window to actually spend anything as Celtic manager. Luck has very little to do with that; it's simply a club living within its own means.

Transfer values used in this story are taken from various sources with corroborative information where possible