Ange Postecoglou shields players as BBC reporter questions squad strength

By Patrick Sinat

May 24, 2023

Celtic dropped more points on the road tonight after the 4-2 loss to Hibernian at Easter Road. In a performance that has become typical of a team that has already wrapped up the league, Ange Postecoglou was fairly unequivocal about what he thought about the performance.

The Celtic manager took a large proportion of the blame in his post-match interview and said that the performance tonight is just down to the fringe players not getting a lot of game time.

But the interview took a different turn on BBC Sportsound as Ange was asked if he thought he needed a stronger squad to get through next season. The Celtic manager’s reply was simply brilliant.

Ange said, “Oh come on mate. Come on. What do you us to do? Win the league by 20 points next year? Is that the thing? So look, I get it. I understand the question and I get it. But then I want if you want to measure us on the last three games by all means.

“Probably you need a different manager as well. This squad has handled Champions League, it’s in the final of a cup competition and won a cup competition and won the league. The squads fine.

“We’ll strengthen as we always do. Like I said, this is on me. I’m making a lot of changes and putting a lot of guys in there that haven’t played a lot of football. And that’s why we’re getting the results. But I just think in this crazy world of Scottish football that if you can’t see past what the obvious is.

“I said during the week if people want to make assumptions that we’re going to somehow going to be not as strong next year. That’s great. I mean, I think that’s probably in our favour.”

Celtic have been praised from all quarters for their squad strength this year. Just what kind of answer was the reporter expecting?

Ange Postecoglou has been fairly consistent in his message that he was going to use these remaining games to give players who have been waiting on the sidelines some minutes in their legs.

The Celtic manager knew there was a risk of these types of results happening. You would think the press would too.

Ange Postecoglou knows that these games are pretty much meaningless in terms of the league title. The clamour from the media to somehow attempt to turn this winless run into a crisis is quite amusing.

With Celtic now one game away from a potential treble, Ange Postecoglou will be fully focused on ensuring that the squad will be up for the Scottish Cup Final after the league trophy is presented to the team on Saturday afternoon.

In other news, Ange Postecoglou reacts to Celtic’s latest defeat