Ange Postecoglou believes the next step in Celtic’s development is to continue burying teams and making our dominance count from an earlier phase in the game.
Celtic have managed to kill off both Rangers and Motherwell by half-time over the last week. It’s been an impressive level of intensity that the Hoops have been performing with, and certainly makes a change from the first half of the campaign.
Of the Hoops’ 19 Premiership wins this season, 7 of them have come by 1 goal. The latest being the 2-1 victory at Tynecastle in which we could’ve had things wrapped up a lot sooner.
Ange and the supporters have been a lot happier at seeing the early dominance pay off against Motherwell and Rangers, but there’s clearly a desire for more consistency on that front.
Speaking via Celtic TV, the Hoops boss said: “When I keep saying seek improvement, that’s the area where we’ve really dominated games but kept opposition in it. We haven’t been as clinical. Some of that is because we’ve been very disrupted in the final third in terms of personnel. We haven’t had a run of games where we’ve been able to put combinations together.
“But from my perspective, if we can continue to capitalise on the dominance we have in games in our front third being clinical then it will make us a tougher proposition. As you can see in most games teams will tend to drop off us even if they try and press us, us scoring first changes the dynamic of the game because it forces the opposition to do things they didn’t want to do if their whole game-plan was to stop us.
“I think in the last couple of games we’ve been able to do that. I think we’re creating better opportunities, we’re making better decisions. I think at times this year we’ve been a little bit rushed in terms of trying to finish our good stuff off rather than being calm in the final third. But that’s certainly an area we’ve definitely improved.”
Celtic showing real signs of turning up the heat in the final third
Already in 2022, Celtic have rattled home 14 goals in 6 games respectively. Granted, 7 have come in our last 2 fixtures alone.
It’s difficult to demand your team to have games consistently buried by half-time. The game is 90 minutes for a reason and that’s because they tend to be competitive for prolonged periods of time. However, Celtic certainly create the chances to get a firm advantage in the first 45 of most of their games.
Certainly domestically, the Hoops are consistently in the ascendancy in the opening stage as they always look to take the game to the opposition.
And whilst we succeeded in ending the games early against Rangers and Motherwell, we showed signs of it at Tynecastle too when we stormed into a 2-goal advantage in the opening half-hour. The signs are there and they’re extremely promising.
It’s perhaps no surprise that Celtic are starting to seriously take a grip of things early now that they have more options available to them. Squad depth is absolutely key for freshness, and despite a gruelling schedule, Celtic are currently starting every match on absolute fire.
It’ll be intriguing to see whether that’s something we can generally keep up before the international break next month. We certainly look well-placed to keep the foot on the accelerator heading into the Pittodrie fixture tomorrow night.
In other news, Callum McGregor brilliantly details how he introduces new signings to Celtic
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