Ange Postecoglou has done many things this season at Celtic that not many believed he would do.
He has Celtic leading the Premiership with only 9 games remaining. He has the Premier Sports Cup already in the trophy cabinet. He’s managed to hammer Rangers in a Glasgow derby and symbolise a return to power in Glasgow once more. He’s managed to rebuild a team entirely from scratch in the space of months whilst restoring some pride by qualifying for the Europa League.
It’s a tremendous return from the Greek-Australian considering where we were in the summer. But one big feat has evaded him so far – ending out 4-year jinx against Livingston.
Indeed, Livi were promoted back in 2018 after coming through the Championship playoffs. They then ripped up their grass pitch and installed a 4G surface. Since then, we’ve found it almost impossible to get a result, and we’ve certainly had our opportunities.
Ange’s 1-0 defeat at the Tony Macaroni Arena wasn’t pretty. And that’s if you’re being kind. It was the kind of stale, aimless performance we’ve gotten used to in West Lothian.
5 times we’ve visited the venue since their promotion, and incredibly 3 have ended in draws whilst another 2 in defeat. Indeed, not even Brendan Rodgers could find a way beyond the Lions back in 2018, before Neil Lennon failed to win on 3 separate occasions there.
Celtic need to end their winless run in West Lothian this weekend
If we go to Livingston for a 6th consecutive time and fail to win the game? Well at that point it’ll just be getting absolutely ridiculous. There would be absolutely no excuse for yet another failure at the Tony Macaroni, regardless of how the opposition set up.
In recent years, one of the biggest problems is that we haven’t had a physical presence up top. Sure, Odsonne Edouard may have looked like a threat, but he didn’t have the physical traits to trouble the Livi defence whatsoever. That was evident under both Rodgers and Lennon.
This time, we’ll have a new weapon in our arsenal as Giorgos Giakoumakis will enter the fray. A striker who thrives on the aerial duel, he should cause the Livingston defence more issues than any of our previous forwards have. In addition to that, our game will likely focus on getting crosses into the box from wide areas, so it should suit the big Greek down to the ground.
A win here would be yet another feather in Ange’s cap. The last time we actually won at Livingston was back in 2007 in a 4-1 Scottish Cup rout under Gordon Strachan. In fairness, even though that win was 15 years ago, the two sides didn’t meet at Almondvale again until 2018.
Whether we’ll have enough to get the job done remains to be seen. But the truth is that there’s no reason we should be struggling this weekend, not with the amount of firepower and first-team players we have available.
Sunday could be yet another vitally important day in the Ange Postecoglou era. Fingers crossed it lives up to the billing.
In other news, Scott McDonald slams “really slow” Livingston surface ahead of Celtic trip
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