Ange Postecoglou

Spiky Ange Postecoglou is adamant Celtic DO belong at the top level of European football - and says anyone suggesting otherwise has an agenda.

The Australian has watched his side take just one point from four Champions Leaguegames and their hopes of any European football after Christmas now hang by a thread. But he's insistent he'd much rather be at the top level and struggle to keep up than not be there at all.



He says he's learned a lot about the Scottish "woe is me" mentality since arriving in Glasgow - watching fans react to Steve Clarke and the Scottish National Team's progress. But he's warned against overreacting and insists his team are exactly where they belong, even if results haven't shown it.




When asked if it's beneficial for Celtic to be involved in the Champions League, Postecoglou said: “As opposed to just not being involved at all? So what you’re saying is that we play domestic competition and just ignore everything else? I get your question and I understand the whole… living here for 18 months now I’ve seen the Scottish national team go from heroes to no-hopers to heroes again.

“So I get this whole boom-bust cycle, and getting to here and the whole ‘woe is me’. We’re not the only country that struggles to get results at Champions League level.




I can only talk for my club but if anyone can tell me that from the four games we’ve played that we don’t deserve to be there, or that we’ve been outplayed or looked out of place, then I reckon they’re talking from an agenda or some sort of bias.


The questions I’ve had after each of our games is about opportunities missed. The ‘opportunities missed’ suggests that we’ve got to improve some areas for sure, but doesn’t say that we somehow don’t belong in a competition that we’ve earned the right to be in.”

 

Good point matey.

 

I do think that we've been outplayed by Leipzig. Also, the chances we create aren't sitters, so even putting chances away isn't a simple thing. For one, we're coming up against defenders and defensive setups that are better than our attacking players.

 

Can’t wait until we stick 4 past Shahktar and shut all these tramps up.

 

Really want a win against Shaktar just for the players' sake. They deserve a happy UCL night at Parkhead for all their excretions

 

An agenda against us?

No.............surely not.

 

They've not been that *!

 

I love him so much.

 

Just a random post but it's been chatted before about that cough. I'd say 100% definitely acid reflux Big Ange has. Towards the end of that I could see he was suffering bad with it. Similar to what I go through at times. The big man needs to change his diet because he looks on

 

Talking about agendas and all that, I think that just distracts from the quality of play not being where it ought to be. It's more than simply a story about missed opportunities, I don't really buy that there's no legitimate criticism of where we're at as a club relative to the CL.

 

The flip side of the taking our chances theory and the thing that is usually omitted from it, is the fact that we did take a chance at RB. We then proceeded to crumble almost immediately after and lost any semblance of control in the game.

There is no guarantee if we took an early chance against RM thst we would have went on to take anything from the game, likewise on Tuesday night. We might have, but it's more likely we wouldn't have, given the only evidence we've got to go on was what happened when we did take our chance. Goals do change games but not always in a positive manner for the team that scores them.

 

There's certainly legitimate criticisms that can be made, no doubt that some of our play has been poor. On the other hand we've also played some excellent stuff in every game, causing problems to each team although not taking the chances.

It's fair to say we're not the finished product and I trust ange to identify the weaknesses and improve next season.

I just love his style of play, great to watch even though your watching through your fingers at times.

Do we belong at CL level, for me we do and I think we've proved it even though the results have been poor.

 

ANGE Postecoglou has admitted that Celtic’s punishing schedule is taking a toll on his players both physically and mentally – but insisted that Kyogo Furuhashi still poses a serious threat to opposition defences despite netting just once in his last eight games.

Postecoglou will be without first team regulars Jota, Callum McGregor, Carl Starfelt, David Turnbull and Stephen Welsh for the cinch Premiership match against Hibernian at Parkhead today due to injuries.

The Greek-Australian, who will have Israeli winger Liel Abada available for selection this afternoon, believes the lack of recovery time after midweek Champions League outings makes his charges more susceptible to picking up knocks.

Asked if he felt that Celtic were vulnerable after big European games, he said: “I don’t think so. But there is a challenge there because they are high quality games and they do take it out of players emotionally and physically.

“We are trying to balance that by making sure that we rotate and making sure players have a clear mindset. We also don’t ever change our approach and I think that makes it easier in terms of preparing for Champions League games and then league games. We take a consistent approach and hopefully that helps the players going from one competition to the other.

“But all clubs (in Europe) seem to have had some significant injuries because there is no real time to recover between game. I guess that is a real challenge to all the clubs who are involved because in normal seasons you get a little bit of time to recover between games.

“The Champions League does take out a bit more out of you than league games. Our physical output and the numbers we churn out in the tournament are consistently high. If you don’t get that time to recover then you run the risk of injuries.

“Last year seemed to be a lot of muscle injuries, this year seems to be collision injuries. I have been involved long enough to know that these are just part of football. But, like everyone else, we just have to deal with it.”

However, Postecoglou is adamant that his Japanese striker Furuhashi, who passed up a gilt-edged first-half scoring opportunity in the Champions League loss to RB Leipzig on Tuesday night, does not need to be rested.

The £4.6m signing scored six goals in the opening four games of the 2022/23 campaign and claimed a hat-trick in the 9-0 rout of Dundee United at Tannadice in August - but since then he has only netted once against Motherwell.

“I don’t think people can be too harsh on him,” his manager said. “Last week he set up Jota for a fantastic goal that he created (against Leipzig in Germany).

“Champions League goals are hard to come by, but I don’t think he has been any less threatening. He is still getting into good positions and he has been unlucky on a couple of occasions. I still think he really causes teams problems.

“Domestically we have had to juggle him a little bit. People forget he was in great form and then hurt his shoulder which kept him out for a couple of weeks so he was a little bit disrupted. He is still a player who does very well for us.”

Hibs lost 1-0 to Dundee United at Tannadice on Tuesday night – but before that Lee Johnson’s side had defeated Kilmarnock, Aberdeen, Ross County and Motherwell to move into third place in the league table.

Postecoglou has been impressed by the Easter Road club in recent weeks and knows that Celtic will have to be at their best to maintain his unbeaten record at Parkhead in domestic competitions.

“They are in pretty good form coming here,” he said. “Lee has come in and he has changed the squad a fair bit and you can see they are playing the kind of football he wants them to play.

“They are slowly finding their way in terms of the kind of football team they want to be and that has been evidenced in their results. I know they lost up at Tannadice midweek, but I don’t think there was too much in that one. We know to expect a tough game.

“It is always a good challenge against them and we have had some close games against them in my time here. But our home form has been very good for the year and a bit so we just need to make sure that we pay close attention to the game.”

 

Not always, but most of the time. When looking at the team who scores first for example, they go on to win somewhere in the region of 65-70% of the time according to various sources. Now it is entirely possible that we could be an outlier to that based on how we play and the relative inexperience of the side, but one Champion's League match this season where we scored (to draw level in that instance) and crumbled away from home is a tiny sample size to be basing anything on.

At any rate, I'd suggest that taking our chances would be a positive place to start. How well we then go on to manage games from a winning position in Europe may be an open question, but one I wouldn't mind putting to the test by going one up against Real Madrid (one of the best Champion's League sides in modern history) which we were desperately unlucky not to have done.

 

Was literally whining about being lumped into this European "failure" on the Sevco thread.

Then big Ange comes out and literally spanks every "journalist" in the room.

They must be so tired of having big Ange pull their pants down and tell them to go sit on the corner.

I also enjoyed his little inadvertant dig at Sevco, "champions league goals are hard to come by".

Superb.

I want him inside me

 

Expand on that, please.

 

It was a cracking presser and exactly what the players need. If we don't believe we belong what's the * point? Making up numbers?

Meanwhile wee Gio is saying there's no chance of them competing because of the financial gap

 

No wonder Ange was laughin at that silly *.