Ange Postecoglou delivers Celtic 'no fear' message as club linked with right-back loan move

Ange Postecoglou homed in on emotion and courage as he reflected on his first experience of a throbbing Celtic Park, which bore witness to a 3-0 victory over Jablonec that guarantees the club European football until Christmas.

Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou celebrates his side going in front in their 3-0 win over Jalbonec that he said was an occasion when the return of a huge crowd to the Parkhead stadium gave his team energy.(Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)

Around 50,000 could be packed into the east end of Glasgow stadium - a capacity 60,000 prevented by UEFA restrictions closing part of the main stand. The success that secured a 7-2 aggregate win in their Europa League third round qualifying decider leg, will bring AZ Alkmaar to Glasgow for next Thursday’s play-off first leg. Failure to progress from that tie will at least allow them to drop into the Conference League.

Postecoglou, though, believes he has a team demonstrating willingness to play under pressure to give hope of continuing to move the club forward in continental competition. “The emotion was incredible,” he said of a victory secured by a David Turnbull double and late strike from James Forrest on an evening in which Tom Rogic excelled as part of a fizzing midfield that are driving Celtic on a goal rush – 13 goals now having been netted in a three-game winning run.

“I guess both on the park and more importantly, off the park. The fans created something special. We started really well, we fed off the energy in the stadium and created some good chances and scored a goal. We lost our way a little bit, but second half we picked it up again and it was a real good job.

“We’ve got a really heavy schedule to maintain this sort of intensity, and a full house in here certainly helps us. We’ve got to be a team that shows no fear, tries to play our football and dictate. It’s not easy to do to be fair, and I do put a lot of responsibility and expectation on the players to do that, but the other side of it is you get great rewards if you’re prepared to be brave. These last few games we’ve got great rewards from it.

“Tommy was outstanding tonight, both on and off the ball. David’s been great. I think he gets a bit hard on himself if he doesn’t score, so for him to get a couple of goals tonight is super for him, but he’s been very good. And Callum [McGregor] is just a great orchestrator in there, and understands what we need and the tempo we need.”

On a night where Postecolgou’s wife Georgia and the couple’s children Max and Alexi were in attendance, the club were once more linked with a loan move for Manchester City’s Brazilian right-back Yan Couto. A second consecutive clean sheet, meanwhile, showed the value of former City keeper Joe Hart to the Postecoglou rebuild, the 34-year-old produced a quickfire double save to preserve the home goal late in the game. "He’s a top quality goalkeeper and he was there when we needed him tonight,” said the Celtic manager. “Aside from that he’s a real presence around the place, and he’s very motivated to have success. That’s the kind of people we need here.”

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