Hibs captain Paul Hanlon has hailed Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic style after the Leith side were on the receiving end of a 6-1 thrashing in Paradise yesterday.
The Hibees haven’t won in Glasgow’s East End in twelve years and and their poor recent record looked set to continue after just a third of the game when Celtic raced into a 3-0 lead with only half an hour played.
Four changes were made at the break from Hibs manager Lee Johnson but despite a goal from Elie Youan to reduce the deficit, his subs couldn’t prevent a much-changed Celtic running the score up, with Hanlon hailing Celtic’s obvious depth as well as their quality.
When asked in the post-match press conference about the strength of the Celtic squad compared to other Hoops teams, Hanlon said: “There’s been a number of good Celtic squads, Brendan Rodgers had a really strong squad so Celtic are always strong but their style of play, their high-pressing, attacking football, I imagine as a Celtic fan it’s exciting to watch and it’s definitely difficult to play against.
“We got off to a poor start and coming here you know it’s going to be difficult, and to give away a couple of early goals it’s an uphill task from there but even then we didn’t really do enough to stop the flow of goals coming in.
“It’s really disappointing, one that we’re going to have to debrief heavily and learn from as much as much as we can.”
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Hanlon’s manager Lee Johnson bemoaned both his side’s psychological and technical inferiority in his own post-match presser, with the Hibs captain agreeing with his manager’s ruthless assessment of his side’s performance.
When asked about his manager’s comments, Hanlon said: “I think he means putting our stamp on the match, putting tackles in, really getting close to Celtic and stopping them in their rhythm.
“I think the boys collectively worked hard as a unit, we covered the pitch but without affecting Celtic enough and when you play against the quality they’ve got then it’s going to be a difficult afternoon.”
Fragile Hibs were lambs to the slaughter in Paradise mauling
Any fears that Ange Postecoglou had over-rotated his side after a couple of hairy performances away to St Mirren and St Johnstone were put to rest quickly yesterday as Celtic all-but-secured the three points after barely twenty five minutes of the match.
Hibs’ susceptibility to balls into the space behind their full-backs was there for all to see as four of Celtic’s six goals came from crosses near the touchline, with all three first-half goals coming from good work from Sead Haksabanovic and Alexandro Bernabei in a new-look left flank.
It was the perfect tonic to recent concerns about Celtic’s productivity in front of goal, with a frustrating month of games put to rest by a ruthless display in Paradise.
With a huge fortnight coming up in three different competitions for the Scottish champions, there were few better games for Celtic’s forwards to re-find their shooting boots, and give Postecoglou something to think about in terms of his team selection going forward.
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