Ange Postecoglou answered two questions today from The Celtic Star earlier at the club’s Media Conference ahead of the Scottish Cup quarter final against Dundee United at Tannadice on Monday night.
The the media focus has been on Celtic getting awarded a corner that should have been a goal kick and Tom Rogic’s arm coming into contact with the ball in the build up to Celtic’s second goal at Livingston while no mention has been made of other incidents in the same game, a second handball that could have been another penalty of the afternoon for Celtic and a late tackle on Tom Rogic from a player already on a yellow card.
We wanted to know what Ange made of this selective scrutiny in the Scottish media and also what Ange made of the Celtic support at Livingston. Here’s how it went…
The Celtic Star: There was real media scrutiny on the Livingston win and some decisions that went Celtic’s way but were there other decisions that were ignored?
Ange Postecoglou: I don’t get into that too much. It seems a lot of the games here are more referee watch than analysis of the actual game. We got as corner we maybe shouldn’t have. Does that mean if we don’t get a corner then next time when we should miss out on a goal?
There is still a hell of a lot of things that need to happen for us to score from that resultant corner kick or resultant throw-in. It’s very easy for people to look for that kind of clutches. I let that storyline run because that means people are actually ignoring what we are doing and the way we are playing. If people think we are in our position because we are getting favourable decisions from the officials more power to them. We’ll just keep doing what we’re doing.
What’s important to me is that officials are human beings and if I was to make an assessment I have seen players and managers make a hell of a lot more mistakes than referees this year. We kind of always understand that a refereeing decision could have an impact on a game and it is how you react. We have had two players sent off this year, we won both of those games.
If I start talking to my players about the fact that if we get a bad decision and everything falls apart then we can’t achieve what we want to. The only time I speak about officials is if I feel like players aren’t getting protection or I think they miss stuff because that impacts more than just a game. That could impact a lot more.
We had Yosuke Ideguchi who has missed a lot of football because of a tackle that I thought should have been punished on the day. It didn’t get punished but it did retrospectively which is good. They are the kind of things I focus on. People then say I hope VAR comes in because it will help the officials. Absolutely. That’s not foolproof either and you have a look down south and see how much debate there is over VAR decisions as well. I don’t think you need to react to those things we just have to keep doing what we are doing.
The Celtic Star: How impressed were you with the Celtic support last Sunday?
Ange Postecoglou: Yeah brilliant, it’s the second time being there and it just feels like a home game, and that’s why we are so disappointed with our first effort at Livingston that we lost and having to send all our supporters who made such a great atmosphere home disappointed back down the road.
Obviously, at the time we sent them back down the road and we were in the sixth spot so pretty pleased that this time we could reward their fantastic support. It makes a massive difference, I think that the players really, you could sense the players were up for that game on the weekend, and we could sense our supporters were up for the game as well. It’s a pretty powerful force when you get them going together.
Now watch this…
