Ange Postecoglou on Celtic critics, 'extreme reactions' and resisting temptation to change

There appeared a real Pollyannaish feel to Ange Postecoglou’s take on Celtic’s tepid performance in their draw at Easter Road on Sunday. A litany of commendable aspects that he rhymed off simply didn’t square with the lack of verve and incisiveness most observers detected in the display.

As a result, for one of the first times in his debut campaign, the Australian found himself at odds with sections of the Celtic support. Many are fretting that, just as the home straight of the championship campaign is essentially entered, a stiffness seems to be setting in with the cinch Premiership leaders, who haven’t hit the heights for a month, even as they have spun outcomes into a three-point advantage at the top of the table - helped by a series of Rangers missteps over the past six weeks.

There are frustrations too that the Celtic manager doesn’t seem prepared to engage in such discussion points. Yet, the situation cuts both ways. So self-assured, so bound up is his mind on that immediately in front of him - which takes the form of the home encounter with St Mirren - neither is he nipped over the hefty blowback from the various quarters towards his team following their Leith limpness.

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Postecoglou doesn’t feel the need to point out that the slip was one of precious few in a full five months of the championship campaign for a comprehensively remoulded side still in the coalesing phase. Equally, he doesn’t feel the need to remind that Celtic are on a 27-game unbeaten domestic run that has brought 18 league wins from 22 such outings. He never promised the Celtic support a rose garden but, at the same time, he won’t take the hump if any supporters want to lose their shape over the appearance of any thorns.

Celtic head coach Ange Postecoglou and assistant John Kennedy (right) during a training session at Lennoxtown yesterday. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)Celtic head coach Ange Postecoglou and assistant John Kennedy (right) during a training session at Lennoxtown yesterday. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)
Celtic head coach Ange Postecoglou and assistant John Kennedy (right) during a training session at Lennoxtown yesterday. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)

“I’m really hesitant to tell other people how they should feel,” he said when asked if it wasn’t a source of irritation that any criticism of his players’ recent performances was harsh when considering the credit they could be said to warrant over how much has gone right in so short a space of time. “Me saying that the players deserve more credit means me telling people how they should view us. I just think that people will take their view on me, the players and how they are performing, I get that. Internally though I give the players enormous credit for what they have already overcome this year and the challenges we have had as a team.

“We have rebuilt a side, we’ve had guys coming in at different times. Some of our boys are still in their second or third month of being at this football club. I keep saying to them that I have great respect for the way they have embraced this challenge. They are not shying away, they are not making excuses, they’re not dodging the challenges that are in front of us. If they keep tackling things the way they have been so far, then we will be in a good place. They understand that football is an emotional game, and they understand that sometimes when things don’t go well then there will be things flying our way. We’ve just got to focus on what is really important to us, what values are important to us as a group. For us, the most important thing is to keep going down this road of becoming a certain type of football team that plays in a certain way. The hope is that, at the end of it, people will acknowledge that.

“I guess people find it a bit sort of weird that I don’t react to [extreme reactions to any points dropped], and that’s where people are a little bit confused by it. It’s not because I don’t think that sort of reaction happens if we don’t play well, or we don’t get the result that people expect us to get, or that I want people to not be passionate or emotional about it. That’s not the case, when you are so invested in something then obviously you are going to get extreme reactions.

“Our job, as we have done and as I have said all along, has been to remember that we are building a team here. Irrespective of our position in the table or our success or otherwise, that’s where we are at. We’re still building.

“People obviously try to push me to a point of saying we are further ahead or talking about our progress, but that’s why I’ve resisted it. We’re still in a stage of trying to create a team that will be successful, and successful hopefully for a sustainable time. We can’t react to these swings in mood or attention, and that goes both ways. It can be equally as damaging if you start believing the hype that you have already achieved something.

“I’ve said all along, our job is to be there when the trophies are handed out, not in the meantime. At the moment, the players have been really good on focusing on ‘what is the next challenge?’ Our next challenge is St Mirren at home, a tough game, and that’s where our focus lies.”

That focus wouldn’t seem to extend to making specific plans for teams should they elect to camp in against Celtic. A common theme has been the attack-driven Parkhead side’s poise being disrupted when confronted by teams willing to cede all the possession in gaming that there is value to allowing Postecoglou’s men to play in front of them and retreating to pack out their defence lines as then required.

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“Our challenge is to resist those kind of temptations that the game provides you, because there is no perfect formula to winning a football game,” the Celtic manager said. “People seem to think that if you’ve got 17 plans going into a game, you can use them all to win that game of football. Well, you could use them all and still need an 18th.

“My view on all of that has been that we have to have a belief in something. We believe in playing the game a certain way, trying to be a really aggressive team, trying to create opportunities and score goals, trying to dominate games of football. When we do those things, more often than not we will win games, but we won’t win them all. I know that. No team does that, there’s no system that will give you that. What we’ve got to keep reflecting on is that we are in this current position we are at this moment on March 1, because we have believed in something. That is a certain way of playing the game. And if that has got us to this point, we’ve just got to keep reinforcing that to the end and hope that gets us to where we want to be.”

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