Ange Postecoglou does not buy into St Mirren-Celtic theories despite Paisley power-robbing

There could be a sense of something about encounters at St Mirren Park that robs Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic of their powers.

Celtic's Moritz Jenz and Stephen Welsh are left despairing after the concession of a second in St Mirren's 2-0 win in Paisley five-and-a-half months ago - making the venue the only one in Scotland Ange Postecoglou has yet to see his team win in.(Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)

It isn’t only the solitary top flight ground the Australian hasn’t witnessed a win from his team within in his 20 months at the helm. Across the two outings at a venue they will return to on Sunday, they haven’t even scored. Postecoglou pooh-poohs the possibility there could be something about playing the Paisley club in their own stadium that doesn’t agree with his side – whose only domestic defeat in this campaign came when they lost 2-0 at the ground in September. They have won 23 and drawn one of their 24 assignments on the home front since then.

Celtic’s one defeat-blot in their Premiership record came on a day when both Cameron Carter-Vickers and Carl Starfelt did not feature at the heart of their defence, Moritz Jenz and Stephen Welsh in those roles. That outcome followed a scoreless draw for Celtic at St Mirren’s home the previous December. On an evening when Kyogo Furuhashi was unavailable through injury, Liel Abada leading the line. Personnel issues that account for the peculiar anomalies in the mind of the Australian.

“If you look at the last game, and look at the line-ups and where we were in the season, there was a fairly logical explanation for that [result],” he said. “We didn’t play well, they did and we paid a price. We analysed that performance and we dealt with it and we haven’t improved since. Beyond that I don’t buy into anything else around it. I wouldn’t be seeing any kind of trend.”