Opinion: Chris Sutton's comments on senior Celtic figure are correct

Chris Sutton used his recent Daily Record column to make an interesting claim about Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou.

The former Hoops striker reckons that no matter who wins the league this season, Postecoglou should be named as Scotland’s manager of the year.

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s no point in even starting the voting. Postecoglou ’s work at Celtic makes him the outstanding candidate and you’d be as well just handing him the award right now” he said.

There will be other candidates for the award. Robbie Neilson has done well with Hearts, and Dick Campbell is doing a great job in getting Arbroath in contention for promotion.

However, when you consider the challenges that Postecoglou has faced this season, he deserves plenty of credit for how he has got Celtic challenging for domestic honours this season.

For a start, Postecoglou wasn’t appointed until later in the summer as Celtic would have liked, after the failed pursuit of Eddie Howe. Then there was the fact that three of Celtic’s best players, Ryan Christie, Odsonne Edouard and Kristoffer Ajer, left the Hoops in the summer transfer window.

Then you have to take into account Celtic’s indifferent start to the season, which saw the Hoops in sixth place in the Premiership in October, and the club’s injury list, which has seen arguably Celtic’s best player – Kyogo – be out of action since December.

Somehow the Hoops boss has managed to overcome all these issues which have affected Celtic this season and has the Hoops sitting clear at the top of the Premiership heading into the last seven games of the season, and on a 31-game unbeaten domestic run.

That is perhaps more than any Celtic would have hoped for, when you consider the many problems that the team have