“Backed up by some discipline, and resilience around our football,” Postecoglou

Ange Postecoglou has revealed his determination for the Celtic squad to ‘learn and evolve’ despite their success.

The Celtic manager holds his squad to a very high standard and is determined to drill his motto of ‘We Never Stop’ into each one of their mindsets. After taking all three points from Livingston on Wednesday, instead of being pleased with the maintenance of his lead at the top of the table, the Australian was frustrated at his players for not conforming to his high standards.

Ange makes the point that it is crucial for the Celtic squad to stick to the mantra and believe that it will eventually amount to something, otherwise Celtic will watch as chances pass them by. As reported by the GlasgowTimes, Ange said…

“What’s important for me is I want us to play well. My mood’s kind of dictated by how we play, our performance. As much as I love winning, and hate losing and those things you get measured by I’d rather we had put on a better performance against Livingston. Within that context, we have been very good for a long time.

“We just have to make sure we don’t just start believing things will happen as a consequence of us going out there and sort of playing the style of football we want. That has to be backed up by some discipline, and resilience around our football,” the Celtic manager stated.

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(Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

“Listen, I understand that’s the ultimate measure but I believe we need to hit certain levels of performance and play the game a certain way. I say that because that is where I think is the road to success. If you just focus on the winning, you are going to miss opportunities like midweek to learn, and evolve.

“You know I could have walked away from Livingston and say, ‘we’ve won against a difficult opponent’, but that would ignore the areas we could improve. I think the players are well aware of that and they’ll be disappointed we didn’t turn up as we needed to. I try and stay as even-tempered as I can in terms of analysing what I see and what is important to us.

“And the players relate to that and become accustomed to that so when we do our analysis we do it in the absence of the scoreboard and what it shows up there. We just look purely at the football we play and the kind of team we want to be.

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“I think the players would probably be disappointed if I had walked into the dressing room after the Livingston game and ignored that. There were times tonight when we didn’t stick to our principles and weren’t disciplined. That’s what they expect of me and that is what I expect of myself.”

Ange expands on his frustrations with the squad over the Livingston clash on Wednesday, saying that it is due to the choices of positioning his players took which led to his irritation. However, Ange did concede that the finishing ability of the squad wasn’t at fault for the chances that did come Celtic’s way, cementing that the real issue was that Celtic’s failed to properly manipulate Livingston.

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Ange Postecoglou after the 2-1 win over Livingston. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

“It is just it was really clear for me in midweek that balls were going in the areas and there was no-one there. When you look back at the vision, players who should have been there chose not to be there. It was a decision. And when that happens I need to go back and question why…why people aren’t getting in those areas.

“Look, in a game of football the hardest thing to do is to score goals. We know that, and we’ve been pretty good at that, particularly against teams sitting pretty deep. We have certain ways we try and unlock teams. It’s not easy to do and it’s a big process to get to that point.

“But what you need at the end of it is people making sure we are fulfilling their roles so we can take advantage of the hard work that precedes it.”

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