Ange Postecoglou has stated that he doesn’t want his Celtic team to be grinding out results as he promised supporters they’ll look to blow everyone away between now and the end of the season.
Celtic are sitting pretty at the top of the Premiership at the moment. However, despite that, not all performances have been of the free-flowing standard we’ve seen in recent weeks. The 3 and 4-0 wins over Rangers and Motherwell respectively allowed the Hoops support to simply sit back and enjoy the 90 minutes.
However, 7 of Celtic’s 19 Premiership wins this season have been by the odd goal. Many aspects have played a part in this such as injuries and the integration of a new squad, but it’s evidently not something Postecoglou wants to see stick around in his team’s form.
Instead, he says his club will now be looking to blow the opposition away in every game as his squad returns to full strength.
As quoted by the Daily Record, Ange said: “We like to play a certain way. We don’t want to be a team that grinds out results, we want to get the fans off their seats. We want to get four, five, six. We will be doing that until the end of the season, then we’ll collapse and have a rest.”
Next up for Celtic is a trip to Pittodrie tomorrow night against a struggling Aberdeen side.
Celtic ready to step things up a level after soaring to the top of the Premiership
It’s not that there have been games where Celtic have simply prioritised grinding it out. The reason we’ve had to is simply due to having a lack of options available to us.
It’s no coincidence that as we get key members of our squad back and extra depth is added, that we start battering Scottish Premiership opposition once more. Rangers were no match for Postecoglou’s Hoops, whilst Motherwell were barely ever in the game at Fir Park.
Ange was able to constantly keep the forward and midfield options refreshed. This is why we continued to create a host of chances throughout the game in North Lanarkshire on Sunday. Had we been down to the bare bones, it could’ve been a much more painful watch.
After all, compare that result and performance to the 1-0 win over the Steelmen at Parkhead in December. It was a totally different watch, and that’s simply down to the different personnel we had available. Ange didn’t have any real flexibility to mix up his team and it showed.
It’s why December in particular was such a grind. We had a gruelling schedule and quite simply not enough reliable options available to feature for us. That’s certainly changed.
So hopefully these convincing results and performances aren’t temporary as we move into mid-February. Whilst we would all just accept the 3 points at Pittodrie on Wednesday night, there remains an expectancy to blow the Dons away. Evidently, that’s exactly how Ange is viewing the game too.
In other news, Ange Postecoglou explains the one thing he frustratingly hasn’t been able to do at Celtic yet
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