Ange Postecoglou takes issue with Celtic away form narrative

By Euan Davidson

September 22, 2021

Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou has responded to questions about the club’s away form.

On Sunday, the Bhoys were beaten away from home for the third time in six games. Livingston joined Hearts and Rangers on the list of teams who’ve bested Celtic away from home this season, after a frustrating Sunday afternoon for the Hoops.

Understandably, results are causing concerns amongst Celtic supporters, although fans are backing the boss.

However, the Celtic manager disputed any notion that the club haven’t played well, and that results will come.

Postecoglou said [Celtic FC]:

“Our away results haven’t been great, but I wouldn’t say our away form hasn’t been great. [You’ve] just got to differentiate between that, because I think you get caught up creating a bigger sort of, area concern than what exists.

“Our results haven’t been great, obviously, away from home. But our form, actually, has been pretty good. The weekend was probably the exception to that, in that we didn’t… play with our tempo, our intensity.

“Number of factors to that, but the stuff we can control, we just needed to start the game with a little more intent to take the game to the opposition. Rather than sort of, trying to play safe or ease ourselves into the game.

“We paid a price for that, because obviously they scored. Then we had to sort of try and create the opportunities ourselves by opening the opposition up, which wasn’t easy.

“Just got to get on with it, understand the areas we need to improve, and move on.”

“Get on with it” is the perfect message from Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou

It seems Postecoglou and his midfielder David Turnbull are very much on the same page here.

Simply put, Celtic haven’t been able to build much of a rhythm yet. Perhaps a victim of his own successes at the club thus far, huge wins over Dundee, St Mirren and Ross County set expectations sky-high.

Clearly, there’s work to be done at the club. Injuries, Covid and several new signings trying to gel simultaneously doesn’t help. However, we’re not the only club that’ll suffer from injuries, have loads of new players, and so on.

There’s no easy answer here. You could argue that the intimidation factor of playing at Celtic Park adds energy to the players, but in terms of quantifiable, training pitch issues to be addressed?

At the moment, all we can do is put our faith in Postecoglou and his team to turn this around. The talent’s there, and the performances have been there, but the results have been lacking.

Eventually, something’ll give, and Celtic away days will become jubilant again.

Read more: Celtic midfielder David Turnbull responds to criticism of away form