“Lumping us in with other clubs”; Ange Postecoglou rails against ‘outside noise’ surrounding Celtic

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A satisfied Ange Postecoglou took his chance to set the Celtic record straight yesterday evening, in the wake of a fine 6-1 win at home to Hibernian.

We already knew that the Bhoys boss was less than happy with some of the reporting surrounding the club in the wake of our UEFA Champions League disappointment against RB Leipzig, he made that clear in his pre-match press conference, but he took another opportunity to reinforce that in his post-match comments.

67 Hail Hail attended his media event in the Celtic Park press room, and he told us: “Some of the reporting around us has been fairly ridiculous. I don’t know why everyone’s lumping us in with other clubs — I just don’t understand that.

“At Champions League level, we’ve fallen short of taking opportunities. I understand we need to improve that, but in terms of our will and endeavour to play football the way we said we would, we’ve been doing that all along. My only fear or worry I have is the boys lose focus or get distracted by the outside noise that somehow we’re not playing well.

“I know we are because all the underlying stuff that we talk about is there. That’s easy for me to say, but it’s about putting it into practice. The boys were determined and did that today.”

It’s been a while since Postecoglou has come out swinging in the way he has this week. Clearly, he felt it was necessary to reinforce to his players and supporters that, actually, things aren’t going as badly at the Bhoys as some would suggest.

It’s easy to get carried away with a narrative.

He’s also at pains to separate what Celtic have been trying to do compared to Rangers, who have been very unambitious in the tournament tactically.

The Celtic boss understands the issues we have at the elite level, but he also doesn’t want the more extreme judgements to become the opinion of record on our European campaign. I think that’s fair enough.

In other news, Unlucky Celtic Bhoy makes brilliant impact out on loan and earns new nickname.