Celtic's Ange Postecoglou drops heavy hint about imminent arrivals - Saed Hakšabanovic "getting closer"

A few words from Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou in his post-match following the club’s 2-0 home win over Hearts spoke volumes about the likelihood of imminent arrivals in the coming days.

Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou shows his frustration during the 2-0 win over Heats which gave way to telling transfer updates. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)

Montenegrin winger Saed Hakšabanovic is the latest player to be linked with the Scottish champions and, while Postecoglou is reluctant to discuss names – though did break with that in responding to his name being raised in a Sky interview by saying a deal was “getting closer” in a Sky interview, he gave his strongest indication yet that Celtic will shortly be adding to the seven signings they have made across the summer. Asked if there was ‘a possibility of new faces this week’ there was the hint of a smile as the 56-year-old replied: “Yeah, there is a possibility”. It might not appear revealing but the tone with which the answer was delivered seemed telling.

The Celtic manager conceded his team were not at their best as they extended their 100 per cent record in the cinch Premiership to a fourth game that has allowed them to move two points clear at the top of the table. But against an obdurate opponent, he was content that they still did more than enough with an early goal from Kyogo Furuhashi and another in the final seconds from the Japanese striker’s replacement Giorgos Giakoumakis.

“It was OK,” he said of the display..” It wasn’t as free-flowing as I’d like a game of football to be. It was stop-start and not a lot of consistent tempo. Some of it was our doing but it was just one of those games where it didn’t feel like we could open up and play our football. The players maintained their discipline, didn’t get frustrated and in the end got a good win. It’s great the two front men scored]. They are both quality strikers. Provided we give them the service, and some of our service today wasn’t great, but when we get the ball into those areas, both of them are very good finishers. They have a real presence in the box in different ways, different styles. It was great for them to get their goals.

"The most pleasing thing [is we kept going to the end]. We didn’t get frustrated. It’s easy in these kind of games to get frustrated and let it get in your head that you’re not as dominant or as free-flowing as we would like. But we just had to grind our way through it and I thought we did that. I don’t think Joe [Hart] really had a save to make. Their keeper {Ross Stewart] had couple of good saves towards the end so it’s not like we weren’t in control.It’s just we couldn’t be as expansive as we wanted to be.”

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