When a striker who banged in a hat-trick in the last league game is missing for the following match, and that game finishes goalless, it would be easy to point to an absent in form hitman as the reason for a drop off in goals.
However, Ange Postecoglou states the loss Giorgos Giakoumakis wasn’t the reason for the Hoops drawing a blank at Easter Road, as the Celtic manager, as reported by Football Scotland believes Celtic played well enough to win, even without the Greek striker, who should be fit to return to action for Wednesday night’s clash with St Mirren.
“I don’t think we missed him, but he should be okay. We are hoping he will be okay for Wednesday. It is just an illness and he wasn’t right for today. With a bit of luck he should be okay for Wednesday.
“Giorgios wasn’t going to make us play any better than we did today. We played well enough we just weren’t able to score a goal.”
Instead, there is a strong belief from Ange Postecoglou and a consistent message being relayed – Celtic on the back of a nine-point turnaround sit where they are due to remaining focussed on the process he has instilled and one his players buy into, anything else is just noise to the Celtic manager, who points to outside parties running with their own agenda, something the Celtic manager will simply ignore.
“I don’t think I said last week that anything was done and dusted. Again, that’s the commentary that’s being run outside of me. I’ve said all along, whether we were six points behind or three points ahead, we’re just going to run our own race and keep doing what we have been doing to get us in this position. And we’ll keep doing that until the end of the year.
“Ultimately, what other people assess again about the points and where we sit in the table, it doesn’t make one bit of difference to the way we are going about our things.”
You have to admire Postecoglou’s single mindedness on this one. There is clearly a belief in his philosophy and a trust in his players to carry those methods onto the pitch.
Yesterday was a disappointing result, and although the manager proclaims he was happy with the performance, it was clear Celtic lacked tempo and creativity at Easter Road. However, in the end points dropped on Sunday have not impacted on Celtic’s lead at the top of the table, and Postecoglou’s process has Celtic sitting in a position few would have believed possible just a few months ago.
Wednesday’s home match with St Mirren could be just the opportunity to evidence there has been no momentum lost for Celtic, despite a worrying lack of goals in recent matches – the return of a hat-trick scoring striker will certainly be a welcome shot in the arm in that regard.
And it seems Ange Postecoglou intends to stick to the beliefs that have got him, and Celtic, this far, and you can’t argue phenomenal progress hasn’t been made, it will now be down to whether it can be sustained in the final ten games of a gruelling season.
Niall J
