Celtic’s return to action at Parkhead ended in victory for Ange Postecoglou and his side.
However, those inside the Celtic Park dressing room seemed slightly disappointed by the manner in which the three points was secured.
As is expected at Paradise, the Bhoys enjoyed the majority of possession and created plenty of chances, with cross balls flashing across the Livi six-yard box.
An own goal from Ayo Obileye and a late first-half strike from Kyogo Furuhashi put the Bhoys 2-0 ahead as we approached the break.
However, the away side quickly struck back, cutting the deficit to just one goal once again as Nicky Devlin gave his team a shout of a surprise comeback.
Ultimately, David Martindale’s side were given no chance, with the Hoops seeing out the game and winning by a one-goal margin, as they have done expertly on a few occasions this season.
Despite picking up another important three points, it wasn’t the overall performance Ange Postecoglou would have been looking for from his side on their return.
Having just come back from the winter break, it could have been easy for the boss or any of his players to write this one down as a lack of match sharpness. We take the three points, and we move on.
However, that wasn’t the attitude coming from Ange Postecoglou or senior squad member Joe Hart, who were insistent that we must improve going forward.
Celtic boss and players insist on improvements; promising outlook for supporters.
Speaking to Celtic TV directly after the game, Joe Hart wasn’t in the mood to simply sugarcoat the three points. The goalkeeper was insistent on seeing improvements.
He said: “We can do better, we know that. First half, we were in control, really strange goal to concede but sloppy on our behalf. Just before, I think we felt when we scored the second that the game was going to open up for us.
“The manager’s told us many, many times that the moment you think you’ve cracked it, you haven’t, and football can hurt you. It was a difficult second half, Livingston hung in well and made it tough for us, but we got the result, and we move on.”
Hart continued: “We don’t intend to see the game out. That’s not how we play. And that’s why I love playing in this team. We’re 2-1 up, and all we’re trying to do is score a third.
“It’s a great mentality to have. But if you’re not playing to the levels that we need to play to, we give the opposition chances, and that’s what’s happened tonight. So we need to up our levels. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great.”
Ange Postecoglou echoed Hart’s comments by stating that he was ‘disappointed’ by the fact his side couldn’t take advantage of the chances they had created [Mail Sport].
From a Celtic supporter’s point of view, all that matters is continuing to keep our winning up and securing all three points.
However, it is promising to hear this outlook coming from the Celtic dressing room, with both Ange Postecoglou and Joe Hart relaying the point that we must improve.
It would have been easy for those coming out and speaking to the media to simply respond by saying we take three points and move on.
But we are always thriving to improve, and despite picking up the victory last night, there is so much more this Celtic squad is capable of.
Ange Postecoglou isn’t prepared to settle for just winning games. He wants to see his team become the best they can by creating chances and scoring goals
That is exciting to hear, with the Celtic manager not simply settling for an okay performance. And the squad also clearly take that outlook too.
Having won 16 out of our 17 games this campaign, that must be an ominous thought for our Scottish Premiership opponents, who are already struggling to contain this Hoops team.
In other news, Recent run exhibits the vital habit Ange Postecoglou has gotten Celtic into.
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