A 2-1 win away from home against Aberdeen at the beginning of October was a monkey off the back for a Celtic team who hadn’t won away from home in eight months. Now in February Celtic sit top of the league and haven’t lost a domestic game home or away since 19 September.
It’s an astonishing turnaround considering the talk of away day hoodoos going into that match up with Aberdeen, however what is most evident now, as Celtic return to Pittodrie again tonight, is that whether it’s at Celtic Park or on the road, and whether it’s domestic opponents or European challengers, Celtic have stuck to their guns and tried to play the same way no matter the opponent or the stadium being visited.
Ange Postecoglou was asked about that at yesterday’s press conference and more particularly about how his team were not just attempting to play with the same philosophy on the road but were now actually imposing that style of play wherever they travelled.
“That’s part of the evolution of the team. That’s always the tricky bit at the start to get the team to believe we can play our football both home and away and until you accomplish that and the players embrace it you won’t get there.
“That’s true of Europe as well, whether that’s away to Betis or Leverkusen, now we didn’t win those games but again it was further reinforced to the players that the way we play our football will be consistent irrespective of venture or opponent or competition.
“In theory that’s all great but along the way you have to get buy-in through results as well. And as you say, since that game against Aberdeen away, you break the narrative of ‘can you win away from home?’ but more importantly ‘can you play this kind of football?’ I think we have shown we can do that.”
Celtic look every inch a cohesive unit through all three areas of the team, the goals are now flowing, chances are being created and with three consecutive clean sheets the back door has also been bolted, yet Ange Postecoglou thinks there remains room for improvement, and when asked yesterday which particular areas could be improved upon, there were no specifics, instead the manager was taking a holistic view.
“All areas really. From our perspective, we still have players who have literally been with us for a month. We still have players who are beginning to get into the season after missing a huge chunk of the first half of the year.
“As they understand the game plan better and understand the way we want to play and because we are getting over our injury issues the competitiveness of training has increased which naturally improves performance. We are looking for improvement in all areas whether that’s the attacking or defensive side of the game there is plenty of improvement still there.”
When you’re putting games to bed by half-time, as both theRangers and Motherwell experienced of late, it must be hard to walk into a changing room and demand improvement from the players, however it is just that area that the manager highlights as where the improvement has come of late, but also now one that can be advanced with more consistency.
“When I keep saying, I seek improvement that is the area I am talking about most. We have really dominated games and kept the opposition in it by not being as clinical as we could be. Some of that has been because we have been very disrupted in terms of personnel in the final third and we have not been able to put combinations together.
“If we can continue to capitalise on the dominance we have in games with our front third being really clinical then it will make us an even tougher proposition. In most games, teams will try to press us or drop off us and scoring first changes the dynamic of the game as it forces the opposition to do things they maybe didn’t want to if their whole game was to stop us. We are not creating more chances we are just taking more of them and at times we have rushed at things but that is certainly an area where we have improved.”
Celtic return to Pittodrie tonight as a team with a far stronger squad, much more belief and in far better form than the team who headed to the north-east in October and ended an eight month wait for an away win.
The progression has been breathtaking from this Celtic team, yet according to the manager there is room for further improvement yet, and nothing the manager says seems an unreasonable ask of his players.
As Celtic return to Pittodrie tonight, it will be interesting to gauge the level of progress over the course of these two matches with Aberdeen as a benchmark as to where we were and where we now are.
Niall J
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