Ange Postecoglou makes Real Madrid vow as Celtic boss hails 'strong mentality' in Livingston win

Ange Postecoglou praised the mentality of his Celtic players for coming through a traditionally tough fixture at Livingston and insisted they take the same approach into Wednesday's Champions League clash at Real Madrid.

Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou celebrates the 3-0 win over Livingston at full time. (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)

Celtic claimed a decisive 3-0 win at the Tony Macaroni Arena to restore their four-point lead over Rangers at the top of the Premiership ahead of facing the European champions in their own back yard in their final group fixture.

Livingston had taken points from Celtic in five of their last six trips to the Tony Macaroni Arena but the league leaders were never in any danger of slipping up on this occasion with goals from Kyogo Furuhashi, Greg Taylor and the returning Jota leaving Postecoglou thoroughly satisfied with the afternoon's work ahead of the trip to Spain.

"Anyone who comes here knows they are in for a tough game, but I was really pleased," the Celtic boss said. "We had a really strong mentality about our performance. It can become a really difficult game. Not that it was easy, but we controlled it playing our football. I thought our general play was good and our goals were good. We probably could have had two or three more and we dealt with their threats well."

Postecoglou quickly turned his attention to Madrid and, after earning plaudits for sticking to his attacking principles against them in a 3-0 defeat at Celtic Park last month, the Australian insists his team will take the exact same approach into the Bernabeu on Wednesday in a bid to claim a famous win.

"What we've tried to do this whole Champions League campaign is experience it in the proper context of us testing ourselves," he said. "As I keep saying, we've done that every game. I understand we've come up short and we know the areas we've come short in and will look to improve. They are not easy to improve but in every game we haven't shied away from the contest or gone in fearing what the outcome may be if we take our normal approach.

"We've just gone in there and seen how we measure up and that's what we'll do on Wednesday. I think from that perspective I'm really proud of the players because it would have been easier to just go out there with damage limitation on your mind.

"But they are looking forward again to testing themselves because as I keep saying to them, the only way they'll get something out of this experience is by not going into your shell and fearing what outcomes may be by taking as bold an approach as we can. "That's what we've done. Yes we're disappointed and wanted our results to be better but no-one can tell me we haven't gone into each game playing our football and testing ourselves. Whether people think that deserves merit or not is kind of irrelevant to me because that gives me an accurate guage as to where we're at. I'm under no illusions over the areas we need to improve in - netiher are the players - and we'll only get to that space if we really test ourselves."