“It’s an opportunity for this club to win a trophy and get some silverware, and particularly after last year, it’s something we want to get back to doing as a football club and this our first opportunity,” Ange Postecoglou
Ange Postecoglou spoke to the Media yesterday afternoon ahead of his first final as Celtic manager tomorrow against Hibs as his side looks to lift the a League Cup for Celtic for the second time this month after Fran Alonso’s Celtic FC Women’s side led the way a fortnight earlier beating Glasgow City to lift the SWPL (ie league) Cup.
In a longer that usual media conference Ange was as usual on great form and in particular his answers to the questions put to him by the Celtic Fan Media representatives are particularly interesting.
We have already covered what Celtic captain Callum McGregor had to say when answering questions from the same journalists yesterday, now here’s every word from Ange Postecoglou Media Conference ahead of the League Cup Final tomorrow afternoon…
💬”When I joined this football club, that was obviously the aim and I was under no illusions that I was to try and bring success to this football club and the first opportunity for that will be Sunday.”🍀
More from the boss ⤵️#PremierSportsCup
— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) December 18, 2021
Q: An injury update on who is available for Sunday?
A: There are no further injuries from the other night. In terms of guys in rehab, they are all progressing. We have another day tomorrow but I can’t really make a call on any of them being available or unavailable at this stage. As I said earlier in the week, it is a day-to-day proposition on who potentially is available for Sunday.
Q: What would it mean to you to clinch that first piece of silverware so early in the season?
A: We have had so many games and we kind of focus on what is in front of us and it is only this morning when I walked in that I started to prepare for it in terms of opposition analysis. There has been a lot of hype around the place and I am looking forward to it and I enjoyed the semi-final, the trip to Hampden and everything that entails. It should be a special day. It is an opportunity for this club to win a trophy and get some silverware particularly after last year and it is something we want to get back to doing as a football club. This is our first opportunity and hopefully we can give a good account of ourselves and take it.
Q: Is everybody okay in terms of Covid, players and staff?
A: Knock on wood we have all been tested and everybody is clear at this stage. It is kind of getting into every sort of organisation and every way of life again and it is something we are aware of and from our perspective, we are just trying to keep our protocols in place and keep educating our players and staff to try and do the right things and even if you do everything right it may still creep in.
Q: One manager has said there should be a break, another manager said we just play through… what are your thoughts on the situation?
A: Look, it’s a difficult one because again we deal with limited information and we are not best placed to make sweeping statements about overall policy I think. The one thing we do know about this thing is that it is very hard to predict the future and we could have a break and the worst is still to come and it puts more pressure on the fixtures and more pressure on clubs further down the line.
My gut instinct is we keep playing until it’s impossible to do so or we get advice that it is best that we stopped playing. The paramount thing is the health and safety of our players, our staff and our supporters and for that, we have to follow guidance. This is unchartered territory for the whole world. We can’t make assumptions and predict things when we all know how this thing works is that we don’t know potential pitfalls down the road and any sort of timelines with certainty. One certainty we do know is that we can play and we can have supporters in the stadium and my gut tells me we keep going and again that is me talking with limited information. I always sort of defer to people who have all the information for this kind of decision.
🎙️ “It’s an opportunity for this club to win a trophy and get some silverware, and particularly after last year, it’s something we want to get back to doing as a football club and this our first opportunity.”
📺 Watch full media conference on YouTube ⤵️#PremierSportsCup
— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) December 17, 2021
Q: The final will go ahead but do you feel for the fans who are being told to try to stay away from big events and limit what you do because fans naturally want to be at a big event, don’t they?
A: It’s tough and we live in a society where people have been through unprecedented times and the one thing about human nature is that people still at their very core want to live their lives. It is very hard to dictate to people what to do and not to do. All we can do is provide the right kind of advice to people and they take the right sort of precautions and make sure they are vaccinated and they test negative before coming to the games and as much as possible try and limit their exposure.
It is a challenging one because supporters missed last year and they miss football because it is a big part of their lives. Sometimes people dismiss football as just another of entertainment, we know that’s not the case. For a lot of people the football club they support, this football club in particular, is generational and people have invested their whole lives into following this football club. It’s challenging but I guess the whole of society is going through challenging times at the moment.
Q: It is your first cup final… how much are you looking forward personally to leading the players out at Hampden Park?
A: Immensely so. When I joined this football club that was the aim and I was under no illusions that I had to try and bring success to this football club and the first opportunity for that is Sunday. I am looking forward to it and I am sure it will be a great occasion and the atmosphere will be sensational and ultimately it is then about us preparing well and giving the best of ourselves on the day and hopefully that proves to be successful.
Q: You said you have not had too much time to think about the cup final, can that be a positive because no one had time to overthink or hype it up too much?
A: Potentially, you never know with these things as it is always a balancing act. The reality is that it is a big game and you cannot ignore that fact as you can’t go into it and say it is another game because it’s not. You want the players prepared for that and with our schedule the way it was and with the challenges, we have had in recent weeks around injuries and players available it definitely was in terms of our preparation beneficial to get the players focused for what the next game was. They have handled that well and it culminated in the other night when we won a game of football against the odds in terms of the circumstances on the night and that gives them a positive feeling and we can concentrate on the game ahead.
Q: Do the performances and results you have seen so far give you confidence that you will get the performance and result you are looking for on Sunday?
A: The underlying stuff is there and I am always one who tries to understand the performance. It is all about results, I get that but it is kind of easy to look at a result and say we are obviously in great form because we’ve won a lot of games in recent times but it is the underlying stuff with our football. We have been very consistent irrespective of the team we have put out with the basic foundations of our game. That is encouraging but there is no doubt you still want your best players out there and you still want the players especially when you are hitting one area and we have injuries in one area and we are playing players in attacking positions and that is not their natural position and it is very demanding.
We have been wasteful in front of goal and at the same time I cannot be too critical of the guys we have in there because that is not their natural position, Definitely, for me, the underlying stuff has been there, our work-rate, our pressuring, our defensive endeavour has been brilliant, our build-up play has been really constructive, and we are finding new ways to break through the opposition. From that point of view on Sunday those things we can control and we can bring a certain level of competition irrespective of the team we put out there.
. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
Q: Are Hibs one of the trickier teams to prepare for? They have been pretty inconsistent but, as (the)Rangers found out in the semi-final, when they are on it they can be devastating.
A: I think in a cup final the opposition is always tricky because the one thing you know about a cup final is that you can forget recent form. It is not like we have an advantage because we have been really good and if Hibs have been up and down then what you know is that in a one-off game of football with such a big prize people are going to lift their levels of performance. That’s undoubtable and no one will go into this game feeling like they are not informed as it goes against human nature when you know what the prize is at stake.
I don’t expect, whether it’s Hibs or anyone else, this game to be any less tricky than what it will be. Again, our focus is on the stuff we can control. We can control our own football. We can control our own intent in the game and try to make the game be played on our terms, which we’ve done recently. If we do that and Hibs have a good day, we’ll be able to match them. But what we don’t want to do is think that because their form has been tricky that potentially they’re not going to have a good day. We’ve got to prepare ourselves that they’re going to be – as we saw in the semi-final – at their best, and we’ll have to be ready to counter that.
Q: Do you change anything ahead of a game such as this in terms of your message to the players or is it all about keeping them calm?
A: My experience is that it’s not just another game so there’s no point trying to kid players. If you tell them it’s just another game then they walk out and get hit with a wall of noise and there’s a bit of hoopla around the place and attention then I don’t want them to be stuck staring at the headlights and not moving. They understand it’s a big game but I prepare teams and coach teams and we train for these occasions – that’s what we do.
We have a game style that I think stacks up well in big games. That’s why we play the way we do, because I want us to have success. So we don’t have to change anything, which is the important thing. It’s not like I’m going to go into a big game and all of a sudden we need to change our approach. From that perspective every day we work to be ready for a big game – that big game can come at any time and it’s come now. I hope that gives the players the confidence going into it that if we stick to our principles and play our football that we’ll give ourselves a chance of success. But in terms of the lead-up to it my messaging is that it’s a big game and an opportunity to bring success – let’s not waste it.
Q: Is there an update on Christopher Jullien?
A: No, nothing really. He’s still working hard. Obviously, with a long-term injury, there are going to be little setbacks at times. You need everything to run smoothly and it hasn’t for Chris, but he’s working in rehab and out doing work with our medical team and sports scientists so hopefully he’ll be back out there.
Q: How do you instil self-belief in the team to push on in the face of adversity?
A: A lot of it is self-generated. It’s me believing in the players. As I keep telling them every day: I’m not out there, they are. If things go badly I’ll certainly step to the front but they’re the ones out there doing it so they’ve got to believe in themselves, each other and their football. Most importantly that whatever’s thrown at us we can overcome it in that way. I think when you have a strong foundation of belief like that it doesn’t get shaken when things don’t go as expected.
As a manager I try to prepare my team as best as I can but I can’t do that for every possible scenario that will happen during the 90 minutes. You could get an injury in the first minute, you might get a bad refereeing call in the first minute, you might make a mistake in the first minute or we might go ahead in the first minute. I can’t sit there and go through every possible scenario – it’s up to them to deal with what happens out there.
What I’ve said to them is they’ve got a couple of shields to protect them from that. One is our principles of how we play the game, our football. It will stack up if you continue to be hard at it and continue to do the things we can control like being strong defensively and working hard for each other. Believe in our football, that’s the first shield. And in the worst-case scenario that things don’t go well, I’ll take responsibility for that. That’s how I try to give them that platform but, ultimately, it’s generated by them.
I was really pleased the other night – they kept their composure. I was on the touchline and I could hear the boys. Callum led them really well but there was never any panic in their play or in their actions or their words. They just kept doing what we believe in as a football team and we got the reward in the last minute doing it our way – that was generated by them, they were the ones able to overcome the odds thrown against them.
Q: Does that feed into your thinking for signings in January – that it’s not just about ability but self-belief?
A: That’s a big part of it. I’ve said in the past the one thing I figured out early was that you don’t really sign players, you sign people. Their talent is one thing but their personality, character, all those other things, are just as equally important particularly for the way I want to play. There’s no point bringing in, say, a defender who’s not comfortable bringing the ball out from the back or doesn’t have the character to do that. Because it does take a certain type of character trait to do that, you know?
There’s a lot of talented players around the world but what I try to do is bring people with the talent and skills into this environment that I’m trying to create. It’s a lot easier then to build team spirit when all the guys are sort-of like-minded in that they’re ambitious, have a bit of courage, a bit about them that they want to try something different. It’s not an exact science but you can identify that by having conversations with the players you want to bring in so for me it’s vitally important.
Q: Is the impact of fringe players and players having to be used out-of-position a sign of the progress that’s been made within the whole group?
A: Absolutely. As a manager you want all your players available because there’s a reason you’ve brought them here. You want your best players to be always available and always firing but that’s not how it works. The dynamics of football is that things change all the time. People unfortunately don’t get to see us training but everyone trains – it’s not like we separate the group and say ‘this is our starting XI’ and ‘this is the other guys’. They all train together, to the same intensity and with the same expectations.
Credit to the guys who’ve come in. Not just because they’ve come in and done a job but because it’s the hardest thing in the world for footballers to continually work hard every day without being given an opportunity. The levels of motivation you need to come in here every day and put in the same amount of work as the guy next to you but potentially not get the reward of playing at the weekend is difficult.
But that’s the standards we’ve set and it’s why guys like Liam Scales or Liel Abada will do it and do it willingly because they know that’s what they prepare for every day. The bottom line is they respect one another and respect the work each other put in. If I ask them to do a job for one week or two weeks then they understand they’re going to do it because it’s best for the group.
Q: What lessons do you take from the cup finals and big games you have managed in the past?
A: It’s not going to run smooth, I can guarantee you that. There won’t be a time where I’ll be sitting back taking in the atmosphere. Just about every big game I’ve been involved in has had some ridiculous twist or turn and I’m expecting the same at the weekend. In life we all want things to run smoothly but what I love about football is that it doesn’t – and invariably in the big games it doesn’t. But it’s also an opportunity to create something that’s memorable. The ones I’ve been involved in people still talk about because they weren’t smooth – something extraordinary had to be done on the day to get the victory.
A stiff drink after it, mate, and I’ll be alright!
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