Ange Postecoglou

Woke up this morning from my Christmas do, managed to tweak my hamstring somehow..

I'm blaming Ange..

 

I had training Thursday night. Tweaked my calf dirty Griffiths alchy style, but just like kyogo speed healer its awrite and am ready for next weeks sesh. Ange, miracle healer. Playing mind games with the opposition. Kyogo here we go!

 

CELTIC are badly hamstrung right now.

But Ange Postecoglou has promised worried Hoops supporters that won’t be the case forever.

Kyogo Furuhashi’s hamstring injury was the SIXTH of that nature picked up by a Celtic player in recent months.

Albian Ajeti, Jota, Tom Rogic, Carl Starfelt and Josip Juranovic have all spent time out with similar issues.

Postecoglou admits Celtic need to fix the problem — but he believes it will disappear as players learn to cope with his demands.

And he reiterated that he won’t change his all-action style, even if it means casualties along the way.

Asked about the spate of hamstring issues, the Celtic boss said: “It’s not a concern.

“It’s obviously something we want to get on top of — but it’s not new to me either.

“The way we play, I kind of understand and have done at the clubs I’ve been at, that the beginnings are always difficult.

“We play differently and train differently and it takes players time to adjust to that.

“Along the way we obviously pay a price.

“People forget that a lot of these guys didn’t do a pre- season with us.

“They came in late and we’ve been playing catch up the whole way through.

“But the one thing I’ve never done, and I won’t do in my whole career, is compromise the football team we want to be because we are not quite ready to be there.

“’I’d rather sort of keep going at the pace we are going and it means we are going to have some casualties along the way and lose a few.

“But I still think, for us as a team as we try to grow to be a certain type of side that plays a certain brand of football, it is just part of the process.

“You know, we’ll get better at making sure our players don’t pick up these kind of injuries, though the fixture scheduling makes it more challenging.

“It is stuff we need to deal with and we will.

“But we won’t compromise, and I won’t compromise, on the football we play, or the way we train. Because I know in the long-term that is going to give us the success we need.”

Kyogo was being scanned on Saturday but is unlikely to play a part against Motherwell.

Postecoglou admires Graham Alexander’s side and knows it will be a tough test for injury-hit Celtic.

The Hoops have the Premier Sports Cup final against Hibs next weekend — but Postecoglou wants full focus.

He said: “Motherwell have been on a great run recently and are a hard team to break down.

“We know it is going to be a great challenge for us and don’t look beyond that.

“Our focus is making sure the team we put out on Sunday is ready to tackle that challenge.

“That has been our process all the way through and why we have been able to maintain a really good consistency in performance.

“We’re not looking too far ahead. We are taking every opponent as they present themselves and that is what we’ll be doing on Sunday.”

Postecoglou’s remained focused on football since joining Celtic — refusing to get involved in the madness of Scottish football.

Ticket allocations, refereeing decisions, the Hoops potential appointment of Bernard Higgins — he’s been quizzed on various matters.

So far, Postecoglou has elected not to get involved and he insists things will stay that way.

He said: “I cottoned on very early in my managerial career that there are certain things that were in my control and what I wanted to do.

“For the most part I didn’t get diverted or distracted from that because that is my ultimate responsibility. In any walk of life, if you get distracted or taken away from that focus, and try and control things you know that ultimately you are never going to have an effect on, I think you absolve yourself of your responsibility.

“I’ve seen people who take a different approach and really get riled up about refereeing decisions or things outwith their control.

“I just think ultimately my responsibility rests on what happens between the white lines on the turf.

“And I want to sure that every day my players, my staff and everyone involved with the club knows that is where I am putting my attention.” There could be Covid questions down the line as Scottish football gets braced for some disruption as Omicron hits the nation.

Yet Postecoglou won’t start playing the role of epidemiologist — preferring to leave that to the experts.

He said: “I have never seen myself as an epidemiologist, archaeologist, or any kind of ologist! I’m a pretty simple guy in terms of knowing what I need to know.

“At the same time I understand I am a spokesman for the club in as much as what I say not just in the media but when I am out and about meeting people in public.

“Every time I open my mouth I am representing this club and I want make sure that what I say and my actions reflect the values of the club I’m at and my own values.

“Sometimes that means I don’t answer questions about things I believe are answered by other people with more expertise than me.

“I’m comfortable with that. I’m not insecure with the fact my expertise lies in certain areas and happy to absolve the responsibility to others.”








Ange Postecoglou’s focus has never been distracted by anything outwith his control so far in his time at Celtic; not refereeing decisions, not ticket allocations and not injury problems that have seemed to be a perennial over the last six months.

Not even some of the comments around Japanese playmaker Kyogo Furuhashi and allegations ‘of cheating’ were sufficient to hook him this week.

The Greek-Australian’s self-containment appears to be part of his temperament rather than anything manufactured although he has maintained that the requirement to be single-minded and unaffected by any of the sideshows – and there tends to be plenty in Scottish football – was something he worked out early in his career.





“I have never seen myself as an epidemiologist or archaeologist are any kind of oligist,” he said.

“I’m a pretty simple guy in terms of knowing what I need to know and at the same time I understand I am a spokesman for the football club in as much as what I say not just in the media but when I am out and about meeting people in public.


“Every time I open my mouth I am representing this football club and I want make sure that what I say and my actions reflect the values of the club I’m at and my own values.

“Sometimes that means I don’t answer questions about things that I believe are answered by other people with more expertise than me. I’m comfortable with that. I’m not insecure with the fact my expertise lies in certain areas and happy to absolve the responsibility for other matters to other people




From my perspective, I cottoned on very early in my managerial career that there are certain things that, as you said, were in my control and what I wanted to do.

“For the most part I didn’t get diverted or distracted from that because that is my ultimate responsibility. I represent a football club, I represent the players, the staff and everyone associated with it in terms of the fans, and I want to make sure what I present stays as close to the values and the intent that I believe will make us successful.




In any walk of life, if you get distracted or taken away from that focus and try and control things you know that ultimately you are never going to have an effect on, I think you absolve yourself of you responsibility.

“I’ve seen it often as I’ve been managing for a very long time. I’ve seen people who take a different approach and really get riled up about refereeing decisions or things outwith their control and I just think ultimately my responsibility rests on what happens between the white lines on the turf.”

 

Bodo/Glimpt will be no push over. They beat Roma at home 6-1 and drew in Rome 2-2.

Hopefully by the time we meet them the new players we get will have been bedded into the squad and Ange's playing style, and everyone will be fit and healthy to play.

 

Ange Postecoglou admits he’s pushing to get new signings in the door ahead of Celtic’s New Year crunch with Rangers.

And the boss has also revealed he faces a last-ditch call on strike duo Kyogo Furuhashi and James Forrest for Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup Final against Hibs with the pair both out of tonight’s Premiership clash with Ross County.

Postecoglou’s squad has been left light by injury issues and the manager has targeted fresh faces in next month’s transfer window to boost the ranks

The Aussie wants them in place as quickly as possible.

And, even though he accepts the current climate is going to make it difficult to have any new recruit available for the January 2 showdown against Rangers, he’s giving it a go.

Postecoglou said: “It’s probably more idealistic than realistic. But if you shoot for the stars, they say you’ll land on the moon.

“So I’m pushing to get them in as early as possible in the window.

“To get them before January 2 might be a bit of a stretch, but I do want them as soon as I can because that period before we restart could be crucial in integrating any new players we have.

“Rather than what happened in the summer window where the league has started while we were still signing players. I don’t want to be in that situation.”

Celtic have eyes firmly on the Asian market with Japanese media claiming a deal has already been struck for Kawasaki Frontale ace Reo Hatate.

But Postecoglou said: “The situation with our transfers is that it is constant and we are working through them.

“Nothing is done yet. As I’ve always said, we live in unusual times when things aren’t straightforward. There are delays in areas.

“We haven’t concluded any deals yet, but we are working really hard to make sure we have deals in place early in the window so the ones we want to join us can do so early in the piece.

“We are working through things. Nothing has been confirmed or done.

“If I said a deal had been done, I could be proved a liar in a day’s time because something happened.”

Postecoglou’s immediate focus is on tonight’s vital game in Dingwall and he is going to be without Furuhashi and Forrest as well as Giorgos Giakoumakis, Albian Ajeti and Jota.

The last-named three are already out of Sunday’s Hampden showdown with Hibs and the boss said: “James had an issue and we’re still waiting on information on that. We’re assessing Mikey Johnston. He had a slight issue.

“Giakoumakis is still a couple of weeks. Forrest and Kyogo, we are just going to have to wait and assess them. They are ruled out of Wednesday. That’s all I can rule them out of at the moment and we’ll see how the week goes.”

Postecoglou is refusing to take an eye off Ross County due to the importance of the league match and the threat of the Highland opposition.

He said: “I know people talk about the Cup Final as a significant event and it is.

“But I don’t think Wednesday is any less for us.

“We’ve been in good form the last three months, our performances have been really good and we don’t want to lose that momentum.

“So it’s important we maintain that against Ross County.”

Postecoglou, meanwhile, has revealed the club are keeping a close watch on Covid developments in regards to any planned trips for a winter training camp.

Portugal has been mooted as a possible destination, but the boss it’s a case of simply assessing developments through a changing landscape.

Postecoglou said: “Everything is under review. It’s a day-to-day situation. We’ll do what’s the most prudent thing to do in terms of our preparation and also understanding the health and safety of our group, staff and players.”

 

Taking Bitton off, who was cruising.
Leaving on the pitch a visibly irate Starfelt, who was on a yellow and getting bullied.

Another mistake ?

Bringing Rogic on at 70 mins. *

 

He is one lucky *, bet a fair few had their essays typed ahead of the final whistle

 

Has ralston to thank for bailing him out, was a howler of a decision not to start rogic, when we were so toothless up front, dropped points tonight would've absolutely * us, but we got there in the end.

 

* the haters Ange ma man. * them all.

 

Honestly we've won 14 of the last 16 and tonight we had literally one senior attacker and the first thing people do is moan.

 

Ralston bailed him and Starfelt out there

 

MIRACLE WORKER

 

He’ll be saying thanks to Tam tonight