A penny for the thoughts of Eddie Howe. One wonders if the former Bournemouth manager tuned into Celtic’s win over AZ Alkmaar on Wednesday night from afar, perhaps taking a pensive glance through a rainy window now and again as he wondered what might have been.

Ok, maybe I’ve taken that a little far. If he was indeed watching at all on Celtic TV’s pay-per-view service, the only available broadcaster, he would likely have spent the game hitting the refresh button like everybody else.

Still, his frustration might not only extend to the sight of his stream repeatedly crashing.

When Howe eventually turned down the role of Celtic manager after a seemingly interminable courtship, he might have been thinking he had dodged a bullet. It is now the Celtic supporters though who are feeling as if it is they who have had a lucky escape.

Football is the most fickle of beasts of course, and just as Ange Postecoglou is being hailed as a saviour at this moment in time, it wasn’t so long ago that the Australian was being portrayed as a 3am winch at the dancing. And it could go the other way again just as quickly.

Right now though, there will be pundits and punters alike who will be chewing on a hearty piece of humble pie given the turnaround Postecoglou has managed since the Champions League exit to FC Midtjylland, and fans are now asking what might have been had he been appointed last season after the departure of Neil Lennon.

Was it really only three weeks ago that Celtic supporters were in the doldrums, and Rangers fans were settling in for another season of lording it over their rivals? A comfortable home win against Livingston for the Ibrox side to kick off their league campaign coupled with a late defeat for Celtic at Hearts suggested that normal service had resumed.

The banter baton that was passed across the city last summer was still be in Celtic’s possession, and their team still had the look of one that would be sent to a pre-season testimonial match.

Postecoglou was already being ridiculed and compared to Pedro Caixinha. By the following week, after Rangers had lost to Dundee United at Tannadice and exited the Champions League to Malmo, one famous Irish bookmaker put out a picture of the oft-lampooned Portuguese manager under the caption ‘Steven Gerrard with fans back’.

After a season of such misery and such laboured football, it is little wonder that Celtic fans are salivating over Angeball. Postecoglou’s seat of your pants attacking philosophy chimes readily with what many of them consider to be their club’s ethos, and over the last five games, Celtic have thrilled their support with their swashbuckling style. If Postecoglou was a gamble, the fans are all-in.

Defensively, yes, there are still major question marks. But that all appears to be part of the fun.

Joe Hart has come in behind the backline and made an impact, his very presence providing a stark contrast to the hangdog, almost apologetic-looking Vasilis Barkas.

The midfield will be solidified by James McCarthy when he is fully up to speed, and the impact of Kyogo Furuhashi can hardly be overstated.

Perhaps tellingly of all when it comes to judging Postecoglou’s coaching abilities, the players who were already at the club are also flourishing, and there are some unlikely names among them.

Who among the Celtic support would have given Anthony Ralston a new contract in May, let alone have predicted that he would be flourishing as an ‘inverted full-back’ and providing a major attacking threat? Tom Rogic had one foot in Qatar last season, but now has both weaving their magic over Celtic Park once more.

There will be further new arrivals to come. Josip Juranovic, the Croatian international right-back, will be next through the door, though remarkably, he may have a job on his hands to shift Ralston out of the team.

Postecoglou will need these reinforcements if Celtic are going to carry a credible fight for the Premiership title throughout the season. As he has said himself this week, with the intensity he is asking his players to approach each game, he can’t ask them to continually ‘go to the well’.

And for any Celtic fans reading this, I’m sorry to be ‘that guy’ and temper your enthusiasm, but the run of fixtures has certainly been kind since the away game against FK Jablonec.

The thumping of Dundee, the return leg against the Czechs, the revenge dished out to Hearts and the win over Alkmaar were all on home soil. You would have to assume – though Jim Goodwin might have something to say about it - that another home game against St Mirren tomorrow will see them continue their sequence of wins.

There is a school of thought that the open nature of Celtic’s play will allow better teams to punish them, and the theory will soon be put to the test. This run has allowed Celtic to build valuable momentum, but harsher examinations of Postecoglou’s side lie ahead.

There is the return leg in Alkmaar to come on Thursday, before the first meeting of the season against Rangers at Ibrox next Sunday. These will be the barometers used to judge the progress of Postecoglou thus far.

What the new Celtic manager has undoubtedly managed in such order though is to take a squad and a support that were on their knees, drag them up by the bootstraps, and have them looking towards these games with feverish anticipation rather than trepidation. They are all aboard the Angebus. And how.