{"id":439989,"date":"2026-02-22T18:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T18:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/439989\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T18:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T18:05:08","slug":"the-player-ex-celtic-coach-wanted-to-sign-when-no-one-else-did","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/439989\/","title":{"rendered":"The player ex-Celtic coach wanted to sign when no-one else did"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  The talented young midfielder was with St Mirren at the time, but higher-ups at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.glasgowtimes.co.uk\/sport\/celtic?ref=au\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Celtic<\/a> opposed the decision.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Manager at the time, Ange Postecoglou, encouraged O&#8217;Dea to trust his instincts, stating he would support him against the board.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  O&#8217;Dea said on Open Goal: &#8220;I wanted to sign a player that no one else did.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;And [Ange] kept saying to me: \u2018If you want to do it, do it, and I\u2019ll back you.\u2019\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;But it was the board, like, and everything. You\u2019re saying [you] want me to go in with the board!\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;[It was] the boy Dylan Reid. He ended up going down to [Crystal Palace].\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;It became a bit of a saga and all. &#8220;[Ange] kept baiting me to go in and take on the club.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;\u2018Go on and do it, and I\u2019ll back you!\u2019\u2026 [I] never done it.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Ultimately, the transfer attempt was dropped and Reid moved on to sign for Crystal Palace, a club he still plays for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The talented young midfielder was with St Mirren at the time, but higher-ups at Celtic opposed the decision.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-439989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}