Three challenges Celtic's new manager will have to tackle

However long it takes, and whoever is ultimately successful, the same challenges await the new manager.

That is not to say Celtic are in a similar position to when the transformational Australian took over in June 2021. At that time, Celtic had a squad full of players – of which many saw their futures elsewhere, and a club shaken by setback after setback during the COVID-19 behind-closed-doors season of twisted reality. Also, they were 25 points worse off than a team who would reach a European final.

This time around, the new manager will take over world record treble winners, guaranteed Champions League group stage football, significant value in the squad with no looming “out of contract” dramas, and funds in the bank for new players.

The Scottish league landscape provides a mixed picture. The major clubs outside Glasgow continue to fail to organise coherently to present a challenge. Whilst Celtic’s main rivals plunder the free agent market, such is the gap to third, the margin of error for the new man is slim given how few points the top two clubs will likely drop over the season. Remember: next season sees guaranteed Champions League group stage entry once again. There is a significant prize on offer.

Therefore, having a significant year-on-year financial advantage over all other Scottish clubs does not mean the league will be a foregone conclusion.

But what specific challenges await the next Celtic manager?

READ MORE: How important was Ange Postecoglou to Celtic's success?

Squad management

Celtic cannot simply acquire a load of new players when the next guy is in the door. Not yet anyway.

As well as the usual youngsters, Celtic had eight first-team squad members out on loan last season and apart from the released Vasilis Barkas, all will be returning to Lennoxtown and reporting for duty.

The new manager must decide whether any of Liam Shaw, Osaze Urhoghide, Liam Scales, Ismaila Soro, Mikey Johnston, Albian Ajeti or Yosuke Ideguchi have any future at the club.

In all honesty, the answer is probably “no”. But this group is taking a few million a year in wages and whilst it is primarily Michael Nicholson as Chief Executive Officer’s job to move those players on, it will limit the new manager if squad budgets are tied up in unwanted assets.

Then you have the players that the previous manager barely used but are similarly taking up squad slots and budget.

Conor Hazard, Stephen Welsh, David Turnbull, James McCarthy and James Forrest were all used sparingly. Will they have a more active future or are they deemed bit-part players going forward, and how will they feel about that?

What the latter list also highlights is that Celtic are not is a great place regarding UEFA squad composition rules relating to homegrown players. Out of the 25 players on the A-List for UEFA competitions, Celtic must designate a minimum of eight players that were trained by clubs from the same national league, with four of them being from the club's own youth system.

It is likely why Scott Bain was given a new three-year contract recently to ensure at least the third-choice goalkeeper position aligned with this rule.

Celtic are in the position where many of the fringe players help keep Celtic within this quota if they want to ensure the full 25 slots are utilised on List A.

Postecoglou’s recruitment was from far and wide but not from Scotland.

Currently, only six first-team regulars would qualify for the eight positions. The risk is having to go into the premier club competition with a weakened squad.

So, much to do around squad pruning (currently 33 first-team squad members) and squad composition for UEFA homegrown rules.

The defence

Postecoglou’s approach was to score more goals than the opposition.

This is, of course, a massive oversimplification! It made good copy but the Australian tweaked the team to ensure that when attacking, the rest of the defence was tighter to minimise transition disruption.

Specifically, inverted full-backs tucking in, allied to Callum McGregor’s positioning, provided a central screen when attacks broke down.

Still, Celtic conceded 53 goals in 53 matches last season. A remarkably high total for such a dominant team.

Champions League football distorts that to some extent (15 conceded in six games), but this is consistent with the prior season when 27 goals were shipped in 14 ties.

Were Celtic unlucky? Not over the season. One goal conceded per match against an xG of 0.99. Last season it was 0.92 conceded per game versus an xG of 1.00.

In such a low-scoring sport, it only takes one goal to upset a favourite. We all bought into Postecoglou’s buccaneering style of attacking football but there were legitimate reservations about whether it could scale to European levels.

The evidence was it could not, although whether a third term would have improved that we’ll never know.

However, you cannot play one way on a Saturday at home to Motherwell and then the same players adopt an utterly different style on Wednesday in Spain. That was a pillar of Postecoglou’s thinking at least. It seems sensible though that if the defence patterns are to be tightened then the players need to be familiar with the systems and structures week after week.

Celtic cannot progress in Europe giving up between 2 and 2.5 xG per game. I did an analysis of one-sided results in the Champions League, and it is not the case that when the likes of Bayern Munich or Manchester City score five, six or seven times that their xG is five, six or seven. It seems there is a tipping point around 2.5 xG and over whereby anything can happen, and a big score is more likely.

So, in Europe at least, but probably overall to allow the team to be well-practised, the new manager will need to find a way to make Celtic less easy to score against.

READ MORE: Celtic's set pieces: Why next manager can make huge strides

Pressing effectiveness

Whilst every coach has their own ideas and variance of approach, modern football orthodoxy at a high level can be summarised (at the top level at least) as fast, aggressive attacking football with an emphasis on pressing high without the ball.

This was very much Postecoglou’s style and one many top sides have tried to implement.

Celtic have, therefore, selected a squad designed to play that way, but within the limitations of our budget.

Whilst there is no doubt Daizen Maeda and Kyogo Furuhashi are well suited to a counter-pressing style of off-ball play, this is less obviously true of Celtic’s midfield.

Matt O’Riley is a good pressing midfielder and despite his apparent lack of top-end speed, his highly attuned anticipation (and bloody huge feet!) allow him to nick the ball from advancing players. He is second only to Maeda in terms of pressure per 90 minutes (16.93) and pressure regains (2.89). He leads the team in counter pressures (5.81).

Around him, though, that effectiveness drops off.

I’ve left Maeda in as the benchmark:

None of the other central midfielders come close to O’Riley for pressing effectiveness and this data is just for SPFL matches.

If you think of the constitution of Real Madrid’s and RB Leipzig’s pressing attacking midfielders they are profiled as 6ft, athletic build, strong and fast as well as technically able. Think of Marco Asensio, Fedi Valverde, Christopher Nkunku, Dominik Szoboszlai. All players admittedly out of Celtic’s reach financially but the type of profile that the scouting needs to start identifying when they are unproven.

A tough ask, for sure, but Celtic remains an attractive proposition for ambitious players (and managers!).

There will be many other challenges ahead for the new manager but these three are the ones I’d be exercised about over the summer months.