Celtic baulk at peak performance talk - 'I think we’ve been at a good level for a long time'

Matt O’Riley believes Celtic have maintained their peak performance levels for weeks as they look to tie up the cinch Premiership title as quickly as possible.

The midfielder scored twice in Celtic’s latest triumph in the league, a 4-1 victory away to Kilmarnock on Sunday. That result at Rugby Park took them to 91 points and maintained their 12-point lead over closest challengers Rangers. With just six matches remaining this season, a maximum of two wins and a draw are required to be officially crowned champions, while their top-flight goal tally now stands at 102.

Unbeaten domestically since mid-December and on a 17-match winning streak across all competitions, Celtic have blown away all before them and asked in the wake of the match in Ayrshire, where they scored four goals inside the first 27 minutes to seal the victory, if the team was peaking at the right time, O’Riley replied: “I wouldn’t say we are peaking. I think we’ve been at a good level for a long time, to be perfectly honest. Especially since the World Cup break, the consistency of performance has been very, very high. It’s now the business end of the season where we need to maintain that level and increase it, and I think we are doing that.

“We all want more. We want to continue to raise the bar that we set ourselves. There’s no set target in terms of the amount of goals or points we should be getting, but if we continue the way we are, we should be in a nice place at the end of the season.”

Celtic continued their rampant form with a 4-1 win over Kilmarnock on Sunday.

As has been the stock answer in recent weeks, all talk of when the title can be secured is being batted away by those within Celtic. “We’re not thinking about that too much,” said O’Riley. “We’ve got some really big games ahead of us. One more league game [before the split, at home to Motherwell on Saturday] then the [Scottish Cup] semi-final [against Rangers]. It’s a boring answer, but it’s genuinely one game at a time. That’s the best mentality to have.”

O’Riley and his team-mates have had to cope with playing after Rangers almost every week since the start of March, but that does not faze O’Riley. “We try not to pay too much attention to anybody else,” the Dane added. “I know everyone else externally is probably thinking about that, but if we do that, it doesn’t bring us any benefit. We’re just focused on what we need to do. That’s what we try to do every week.”

Meanwhile, Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou says young South Korean forward Oh Hyeon-gyu is showing a desire to improve all the time. The 22-year-old January signing was watched by his national team manager Jurgen Klinsmann on Sunday against Kilmarnock and while he failed to score during his 45-minute second-half appearance, Postecoglou is happy with his performance levels and says he will get more chances towards the end of the season.

“We just want to get him game time because we think he will be good for us,” said Postecoglou. “It’s a tricky period with no midweek games when there would normally be rotation. In every game he’s made an impact. It was difficult as the second half was more a battle, which he’s always up for. He got in a great position when he missed his chance. He wants to improve all the time. He’s hungry to be a top footballer and he will get more chances.”