Analysed: What could Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic look like?

You may have read about Ange Postecoglou’s reputation for beautiful attacking football and you may have watched his promise to bring the same to Glasgow in his announcement interview with Celtic TV, but what does this actually look like in practice?

In terms of basic formation, Postecoglou has evolved with each subsequent team he has taken charge of. At Brisbane Roar, he implemented a stable 4-3-3. With Australia, he became renowned for a novel 3-2-4-1 before moving towards a 4-3-3 and even a 4-4-2 diamond. At Yokohama F. Marinos, he generally used a 4-2-3-1, which sometimes became a 4-1-4-1, or 4-3-3, depending on the level of opposition.

To an extent, the formation is almost irrelevant because he is not particularly wedded to any in particular. Postecoglou is willing to adapt his basic set-up to the personnel available and build around that core group of players. It is his core tactical philosophy underpinning the formations which are firmly set in stone.

His all-conquering Roar side laid down the groundwork for this philosophy. Predominantly a 4-3-3, their system was possession-focused with a determination on playing out from the back irrespective of the pressure facing their back line. In possession, the centre-backs split wide and the full-backs pushed up and overlapped the wingers. When they first started to build attacks, they resembled a 3-4-3 and they enjoyed starting attacks from deep in order to tempt the opposition to press them because they were so confident in the speed and verticality of their passing through these presses.

The wingers were encouraged by Postecoglou to drift inside and act as fourth midfielders to overload the midfield. This fourth midfielder, usually German playmaker Thomas Broich, was tasked with finding room between the back line and the midfield in the half-space in an attempt to create chances. Many Roar opportunities were created either through Broich finding space in these areas or by overlapping full-backs getting to the byline and driving crosses across the six-yard-box for strikers and onrushing midfielders.

Postecoglou’s all-conquering Brisbane Roar side implemented his possession-based style to great effect (Photo: Masashi Hara/Getty Images)

His Australia team varied in the formation outlined above, with Postecoglou trying to transition away from the 2006 golden generation into a newer, more radical outfit. Over his four years in charge, they came to display the same ethos as his Roar team. At the time, he stated that “our motto is never to take a backward step and this is incorporated in everything, from our preparation to even our style of play”.

He began his Australia tenure in 2013 with a 3-2-4-1 in order to overload the wings, which allowed for plenty of crosses for the capable head of Tim Cahill to finish. After the 2014 World Cup, he continued his transition away from the old guard and their dependency on Cahill by returning to the 4-3-3 which typified his Roar team.

He became much more possession-focused, with two No 8s in midfield tasked with making advanced runs into the box, although he was still a fierce advocate of utilising width. Similarly to the Roar, his wingers were tasked with coming inside to overload the midfield.

He also returned to a 3-2-4-1 later, as a way of fielding Massimo Luongo, Aaron Mooy and Celtic’s Tom Rogic at the same time: two No 10s, with one of the midfielders in the two-man pivot as a No 8 who can link defence and attack, and the other a No 6 who can drop deep and create a passing triangle with the centre-backs who remain in position.

The middle centre-back was also encouraged to bring the ball out from the back to break opposition lines, dribbling past the No 6. This is a function identical to what Celtic’s Kristoffer Ajer has excelled in — although Ajer’s likely departure means that Celtic badly need to sign at least one first-team ready, ball-playing centre-back this summer.

The formation and personnel have evolved but the core principles remain unchanged.

Most of these principles were still evident with his Marinos side and we can look at some case studies of goals that capture Postecoglou’s playing style. In the recent 5-1 cup win over Shimizu S-Pulse, Marinos score a goal by going from front to back and, in the process, exemplify a number of core tenets of Postecoglou’s philosophy.

The move starts with the keeper providing a simple pass to the right-back.

Very quickly, the ball is switched to the left wing. The Marinos winger, highlighted in white, is offered the opportunity for a driving run inside, with the disguised runs of midfielders opening up space for him to run into. His direct running in turn attracts opposition towards him and away from his team-mates.

The winger offloads the ball to a team-mate narrowly inside the box, who lays the ball for an onrushing midfielder to accurately shoot into the top corner.

In this play, you can witness Postecoglou’s commitment to playing out from the back; his insistence on moving the ball quickly and vertically when the opportunity presents itself, or from wing to wing; the importance of midfielders to both stretch opposition defences with their runs and create shooting opportunities for themselves — and perhaps most importantly, the constant and vigilant search for space on the pitch.

Broich told The Athletic how Postecoglou worked on many “intricate rotations on the training pitch” to help develop how the midfielder receives the ball, so that his first touch always helped him gain a marginal advantage in finding space between defensive lines. Broich’s comments allude to that sacred cornerstone of Postecoglou’s philosophy: the reading and exploitation of space, and the benefits that provides in fashioning chances.

When Marinos’ met Shimizu S-Pulse again (this time in the league, a 2-1 win at the end of May),  they scored a goal which illustrated Postecoglou’s fixation on his midfielders and attacking players constantly moving into space.

The left-sided centre-back is in possession (white) and he plays a sharp pass to the advanced left-back. Noticeably, every midfielder is either positioning themselves in between the first and second lines of the opposition’s defence, or, in the case of the player highlighted bottom-right in the yellow triangle, making a run behind the second line. Each player is either moving into space to receive the ball or making a run beyond.

The left-back spots the run of the rushing midfielder and slips him in for a surge down the wing. While eventual scorer Elber (below —No 7, bottom yellow) is making a run off the shoulder of the opposition left-back, the three other players highlighted yellow are conspicuously offering an alternative option.

They are not sprinting as quickly as they can. They maintain a pace in their runs towards the box so they are not going to be immediately crowded out but will have time and room to either get off a shot or find a team-mate in a more dangerous position. Again, their spatial awareness is crucial.

As in the first example of attacking play, much of the philosophy is predicated on finding the player with the best opportunity for scoring; whether a late runner into the box, someone set up for a shot — or, more straightforwardly in this case — the striker at the back post.

This ties into another of Postecoglou’s tenets: the importance of pace and penetration out wide. Although his teams tend to circulate possession patiently between keeper and defence at the beginning of a move, the speed of ball progression once an opportunity presents itself is key to his play. Unless there is an opportunity for a dangerous dribble, as in the first case study, players generally only take one or two touches before moving the ball on.

Switching the play quickly from wing to wing is a recurrence in his style, as is overloads on wings, with full-backs habitually overlapping their winger team-mates. This is important not only for clinical counter-attacks but, more relevantly for Celtic, dragging deep-sitting defences out of shape so that there is more space to exploit.

Take this below example from the 5-2 win over Vegalta Sendai in April. The ball is won back on the left wing — with aggressive pressing and ball recoveries another facet of Postecoglou’s game plan — before being quickly moved over to the right flank after the player in possession spots the amount of space present there. As stressed by the number of players highlighted as yellow, he has a number of options but elects to progress the ball to the right wing.

Once the winger is in possession, he stands up his opposite marker, waiting for reinforcements. They come in two forms, both of which are hallmarks of Postecoglou’s game plan: the overlapping right-back who eventually offers the cross and assist, and the midfield runners into the box, one of whom provides the finishing touch.

The speed of the ball’s switch from left to right, in addition to the pace of the wingers and full-backs, ensured the opposition could not recover properly to adapt to the new possession.

A statistical comparison is slightly problematic because Yokohama F. Marinos were generally a mid-table side before Postecoglou took over, finishing fifth, 11th and fifth respectively in the seasons prior to his appointment. They would not be as expected to dominate games in quite the same way as Celtic but their statistical closeness to — and in some areas, superiority to — Celtic last season makes for interesting reading.

Accounting for the level of budget and expectation relative to their own leagues, last season, Marinos averaged 697 passes per game compared to Celtic’s 629 according to Instat. Marinos also averaged 59 per cent possession, compared to Celtic’s 62 per cent, illustrating Postecoglou’s devotion to controlling games.

Offensively, both teams were effectively identical. Celtic scored 1.98 goals per game in the league last season while Marinos scored on average two. They each created, on average, seven clear chances per game, and Celtic had an average expected goals (xG) of 2.1 compared to Marinos’ 2.0.

Defensively, Marinos conceded on average an opponent’s xG of 1.26, compared to Celtic’s 1.06. This highlights the riskiness inherent to Postecoglou’s philosophy. There is a reason why so many of their games finish with scorelines like 5-2. It is notable that in his debut season with Marinos, in which they finished outside the relegation play-off on goal difference, they actually scored the second-most goals of any J1 League team (56), but also conceded the second-most goals (56).

They do, though, press aggressively. They average 57 ball recoveries per game compared to Celtic’s 53, with 13 of those in the opponent’s half compared to 11 in Celtic’s case. That will be a test for Postecoglou; maintaining his pressing success after immediately losing the ball while also shoring up Celtic’s 18-yard-box defending, particularly after a season in which they conceded 54 goals.

What will a Postecoglou Celtic team look like?

It is an incredibly difficult question to answer given the scale of squad rebuild both required this summer and his chameleonic approach to formations. Callum McGregor, James Forrest and David Turnbull are among the few first-team quality players expected to stay this summer — but as clever, technical operators, they also neatly align with the profile of footballers Postecoglou looks for in his midfielders and wingers. It is easy to see Turnbull and McGregor as the two No 8s in a 4-3-3, with Forrest as the right winger.

That is one crumb of comfort at least; one admittedly minor foundation on which to build the next team cycle.

Hopefully, there will be greater clarity over this after a few weeks, during which signings should have taken place and Postecoglou’s new team comes into alignment. It cannot be reiterated enough that for all that his track record of free-flowing, attacking football should excite fans, he needs the right players at his disposal to ever realise that potential.