Ange Postecoglou watched his side serve up an excellent first-half performance in Warsaw this evening for Artur Boruc’s tribute match, but then proceeded to watch the second period dominated by sloppy defensive play and an overall lack of fluency and fluidity amidst another several changes to the team in the latter forty-five.
Never one to read too much into the early season clashes as evidenced last year, Postecoglou insisted his team can play better than they did even in the first-half against Legia tonight even though some of the play was sensational – especially that of Reo Hatate. Speaking to Celtic TV, Ange said: “No, that’s looking at it half glass full, absolutely. There was some good football but we can be better – we will be better.”
By the same token, the boss was also quick to shut down accusations that Celtic are in some kind of trouble heading into the new season. He explained: “We’re in a phase of pre-season where the boys are working hard. We’re making some mistakes that are not normally there because of that factor but it’s the only way we’re going to be good this year if we work hard through this period. Once the games start, we won’t be able to (make mistakes). There are examples to improve in the first-half, second half… there’s always examples to improve.
“The point of the exercise now is not to win games of football, the point of the exercise is to prepare a team to win games of football. Today was another process for us where we need to keep building and working hard in training to make sure we’re ready when the real stuff kicks off.”
Much of the sloppiness in our defensive work is due to rustiness and a severe change in personnel heading into the second period in matches. With our favoured defensive pairing of Carl Starfelt and Cameron Carter-Vickers due to be back in contention together for the start of the domestic campaign, we should see a noticeable difference in terms of our concentration and tightness within our play.
Watch Ange speak after the game in Warsaw:
Paul Gillespie
