Ange Postecoglou reacts to dominant Celtic win, supporter display, Jota wonder strike

By John McGinley

July 31, 2022

Ange Postecoglou was a happy man after watching Celtic win 2-0 at home to Aberdeen but has called on his team to be more clinical in front of goal.

Celtic controlled a large proportion of proceedings in the opening day clash, save for a 10 or 15 minute period towards the end of the first half.

A headed goal from Stephen Welsh got the home side underway early before a stunning Jota rocket sealed the deal midway through the second period.

Asked for his thoughts on the game, Postecoglou told BBC Radio Scotland [18:40]: “I thought we started the game really well and had good control of it. Then the last 15 minutes of the first half, we just got a bit slack with our passing and our aggression towards the ball. It allowed them to come into the game.

“In the second half, we addressed that and controlled the game again. I just thought we were wasteful in front of goal today. We needed to be more decisive and made some poor decisions, we could have had more goals.”

On the stunning Jota strike that left the Celtic Park crowd wowed, Postecoglou continued: “It was a great goal. We know that’s the talent he’s got. But he was one of the problems in the first half, in the last 15 minutes, giving the ball away and making some poor decisions.

“He’s like everyone else, we want these guys to be the best they can be, they have to be on it all the time. You can’t just sort of go away from what we tell them to do every day. He addressed that in the second half, not just his goal, his general all-around play was excellent.”

The manager was also asked about the stunning pre-match scenes, with supporters creating a full-stadium tifo display and incredible noise. Postecoglou stated: “Yeah, it was amazing. You’ll Never Walk Alone before we kicked off was unbelievable. The fans, their performance never slips, mate, we’ve just got to make sure we match it every week.”

Celtic are up and running for the season and will likely only get better from here. There’s no doubt we could have won by a larger goal margin today but there were plenty of positive signs throughout the team.

Postecoglou is clearly intent on challenging his star players to produce complete performances, but if we’re winning games and picking up points while smoothing out the entire 90 minutes, that’s fine by me.

In other news, “I know Celtic will go to another level”; Long-time Ange Postecoglou ally makes class prediction.