The 3 title-winning qualities Ange has drilled into Celtic already

By David Walton

March 4, 2022

There’s so much to be impressed about when it comes to the squad Ange Postecoglou has built at Celtic.

The style of football has been a joy to watch for large stages of the season. And, incredibly, even when we’re in poor form, we’re still managing to grind out victories.

Indeed, Ange has managed to accumulate 60 points out of his last 66 in the Premiership. Incredible form that suggests we are indeed genuine favourites for the title. But it hasn’t just been our incredible consistency or ability to win whilst playing poorly that Ange has drilled into this Celtic squad. There have been other, less noticeable factors that deserve a mention.

The first being the patience that Celtic have shown when things haven’t gone to plan early on. In our last 2 Premiership matches for example, we haven’t managed to find the opener in the first half-hour. Celtic had to chip away against Dundee after falling behind before netting twice before the break to go in level. Against St Mirren on Wednesday night, we had to wait 55 minutes before finding the target.

This hasn’t been an overly common theme throughout the season. But Celtic have shown on occasion that they’re able to wait it out before doing some damage. Only twice this season have we failed to score at all after failing to bag the first goal after the half-hour mark.

Secondly, Celtic’s ability to score last-minute winners has returned under Ange this term. We all remember Anthony Ralston’s last-gasp strike against Ross County in December. The same goes for Liel Abada’s late goal for 10-man Celts against Dundee United. Then there’s the superb Giorgos Giakoumakis winner against Dundee in the closing stages.

Celtic showing a host of different title-winning traits

Celtic have managed to score winners in the last 10 minutes on 4 different occasions this season. Whenever the question has been asked of the Hoops, we’ve managed to find the answers. This is something that was extremely prevalent in our game from December onwards.

Compare that to last season for example. Neil Lennon and John Kennedy’s Celtic didn’t score a single last-minute winner despite drawing 11 of our league matches. 5 more of those games ended in defeat. The character on show this season is night and day from what we were experiencing 12 months ago.

And finally, Celtic’s ability to bounce back from setbacks in the league has been extremely impressive and not highlighted enough. The key to winning league titles is to always pick yourself back up instantly after a setback. Ange has managed that brilliantly this term.

So far, Celtic have slipped up on 7 occasions in the Premiership. Only one of those saw us drop points in our next league game. That was all the way back in September too before Ange even had a settled squad nailed down. A 1-0 loss at Livingston was followed by a 1-1 home draw to Dundee United. Since then, Celtic have consistently rallied after dropping points.

Rangers, in contrast, have dropped points on 3 occasions immediately after losing or drawing the week before. Last season, Celtic did it 7 times.

These are all important traits that Ange has managed to instill into his Celtic side, and all of them are major reasons as to why we’re 3 points clear at the top.

In other news, Ange Postecoglou could be days away from killing off a 4-year Celtic hoodoo