Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou enjoyed reflecting on his tactical approach after yesterday’s 4-0 thumping of Rangers, taking aim at those who criticise him for having an inflexible style.
Former Rangers captain Barry Ferguson suggested in the pre-match build-up that Giovanni van Bronckhorst had the Australian sussed in these head-to-head matches due to Postecoglou rarely changing his system.
Clearly, Saturday’s derby proved otherwise and Postecoglou was quick to issue a thinly-veiled dig in his post-match press conference.
As quoted by The Sunday Post [04/09 print edition, Post Match supplement, page 4], he said in preview of Tuesday night’s test in the Champions League: “What a great opportunity to play our football, though. If we’re not successful, fair enough. But let’s go down swinging, rather than deferring to someone because they’re a good team. Our supporters want us to take the game to Real Madrid, and see where it takes us. Let’s have a crack anyway.
“Maybe if I was German, Dutch or Spanish, people might look at me differently as a manager in terms of tactics. Apparently, I’ve got one simple approach, a Plan A. But we’ll just stick to that.”
Celtic supporters are fully on board with the way Postecoglou lines up Celtic and have been for over a year now, despite stirring in the press and from pundits.
We want this aggressive, no-fear style. It’s thrilling to watch and, so far, has largely been successful. That’s the thing about it. Postecoglou doesn’t play his teams this way because of some idealistic vision of what football should be – he just thinks it’s the most effective way to win matches.
It won’t always come off for us – and hasn’t since he arrived. But in the vast majority of cases, our opponents will know they’re in a game and that they’ll require their best to beat us. And that’s a fantastic trust to have in our team.
In other news, BT Sport bonus for Celtic supporters as B team set for live UEFA showcase.
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