As Celtic prepare to face Hearts in the capital for a potential title party, Hearts boss Steven Naismith has been heaping praise on Ange Postecoglou, and Celtic, for their consistency over the past two seasons.
Ange kicked off his managerial career at Celtic with a 2-1 loss at Tynecastle almost two seasons ago. Two 6-0 wins over Dundee and St Mirren at Celtic Park gave fans a glimpse of the style of football Ange was looking to bring to the club.
But after losing to Rangers and Livingston and then drawing with Dundee United in the space of just over two weeks, the Celtic manager was coming under pressure from the press to change his style as the team fell behind in the league title race.
Ange stuck to his guns and the rest, as they say, is history. Now we go to Tynecastle to wrap up the title this afternoon and Hearts interim boss, Steven Naismith couldn’t help but tell of his admiration for the Celtic manager for sticking to his guns.
Naismith said [Edinburgh News], “They have been consistently the best team for the two years in my opinion. The manager’s had a belief in what he does, to start with he took a lot of criticism and now you don’t hear any of that and it’s paying off, he has won trophy after trophy.
“As a young coach or manager you watch that and you inevitably take bits from that, you take things that they’ve done and styles of play in the games.
“It’s a great challenge, it’s an opportunity for me to come up against consistently the best team in the league over the last two years. As a team we’ll need to be wary of their threats but being at home we can cause them problems too.
“We’ve come up with a plan to cause them as many problems as possible. You need to identify their threats and how we try and stop it. It also goes back to the moments we need to make the brave pass, that helps us and then it gives them a problem.
“If you keep passing back the way the goalie will kick it long and it becomes a 50/50 fight. So no matter who we play, there are moments in the game where it’s our chance to dictate what happens, we need to be brave and do the right things in those moments and try and beat the press. From then our attacking play will be what we worked on.
“If you are not willing to be brave, whether it be Ross County, Celtic, St Mirren, Aberdeen – then it’s not going to give you the amount of attacking threat you want in a game.”
What a turnaround of events. Who could have foreseen that after that SPFL debut defeat at Tynecastle we would be heading back there almost two full years later to clinch the title alongside vying for a potential treble?
Ange Postecoglou held firm in what he was trying to achieve at Celtic and it’s great to see that being recognised, and learned from, by other managers in the SPFL.
This afternoon promises to be a tough game. Games against Hearts at Tynecastle always are. But I am confident that when the full-time whistle is blown at 4pm, it will be on a Celtic victory and we will be heading to Ibrox next weekend as champions.
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