Ange Postecoglou started yesterday’s Media Conference by providing an injury update ahead of the match against theRangers tomorrow lunchtime. “Juranovic is still out. We’ll see how he goes over the next sort of week or so. Bitton trained this morning and got through training so be OK and we’re obviously training tomorrow. Aside from that everyone else is fine after last week.”
Is it harder to stay focused in the days leading up to such a big game as tomorrow’s? Not for Ange anyway. “No, I don’t think it’s harder, it’s kind of the usual for us. We know and understand that we’ve got to perform well on the weekend.
“If we do that gives us a good chance to have some success and get the three points – if we do that, then we know it inches us closer to where we want to get to. So no, I don’t think so.
“We are pleased with last week’s performance, obviously coming off the back of a disappointing result the week before it’s always important that you respond in the right manner. And I thought we did, we played some good football at a difficult venue and we reviewed that and we’ve had a good week of training and players are ready to go,” the Celtic manager said.
On his nomination for Scottish manager of the year: “Yeah, look, it’s pleasing. It’s always funny with the manager of the year award because you’re kind of representative of a group so it doesn’t necessarily reflect on just myself. It reflects on the all our coaching staff and all our organisation.
“I feel really pleased and proud for the whole group and the other coaches that they’ve nominated us and there are some fantastic coaches on the list as well. You know, I’ve always said Malky has done a great job (at Ross County) and so has Dick at Arbroath and Paul Hartley at Cove. I think we’re getting to the point where manager of the year will be the managers who survived the season pretty soon – that’ll be the award.
“But happy to be nominated and, as I said, pleased for the group,” the Celtic manager said.
Ange was also asked about the role of John Kennedy and Gavin Strachan who were hanging around from last season when he arrived as the new Celtic manager. “Yeah, I don’t think it’s a matter of them hanging around. I was given an option of bringing my people in but I’ve always felt that, with all these things, you’ve got to assess the totality of everything that happened.
“So last year was a disappointing year but previous to that the club had won nine Premierships in a row and guys like John Kennedy were part of that so you can’t just dismiss or put a line through people because of a difficult or challenging year.
“I like to form my own opinion and make my own assessment of people because when I come in, things change. The environment changes, the way we work changes and then you see how people adjust. I gave all staff here an opportunity to buy into it.
I think if it wasn’t working, you would see by our results. They’ve all done a fantastic job to understand what I needed from them and the change in the environment and how they fit into that. They brought their own skills and expertise to it as well. So, as I said, I think our trajectory this year and where we are at the moment is reflective of all those guys’ efforts.
“I’m sure they learned a lot last year as well. You know, it hasn’t been all success in my career and I can tell you that when I have stumbled I’ve learned a lot about myself and learned a lot about the areas I needed to be better at and I’m sure that’s the case for the guys who were here last year.”
Asked about looking back on the Scottish Cup semi-final defeat a fortnight ago: “You look back on it like you look back on every game, you know. And the game before that, and the game before that. Thatt’s reviewed after the game and we gave the feedback to the players in areas we felt like we could have done better.
“I said after the game it was a very tight game and you lose to a goal in extra time and you kind of know that it’s a game of fine margins, which you expect in a semi-final but it doesn’t mean you take everything from that into this, a different game.
“A league game is different to a cup game. There are different pressures involved and different objectives for everyone. I guess, from our perspective, it’s about making sure that we responded. We did that really well last week, which was important and it’s important to take that into Sunday as well,” Ange answered.
More from Ange’s Media Conference to follow and you can watch below…
