Ange Postecoglou today stated that he’d be really disappointed in his players if they were motivated by revenge tomorrow night in the Scottish Premiership match against St Mirren at Celtic Park.
The Buddies of course are are outfit to defeat Celtic in domestic football this season and that match on 18 September in Paisley which ended in a 2-0 win for the Saints has already been referenced by Celtic defender Carl Starfelt and St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson.
However the Celtic manager was having none of the revenge mission chat at today’s pre-match Media Conference as it does not fit in with the ethos of the squad’s match-day mentality. “I’d be really, really disappointed if they were more motivated tomorrow than they were in the last game or the one after that, that’s not my expectations of any team,” Ange explained.
“Your motivation should be every time you play to try to be your best – to beat whatever opponent is in front of you. If you need revenge as a motivator, then go and lose every second game and it will be great.
“That’s not how it works, particularly here. We’re very motivated because we are representing this football club, we’re in a strong position in the league and we want to continue our consistency, our performance and our results. That’s our motivation, that’s our motivation every week so it doesn’t need anything extra to get these guys up and running,” the Celtic manager stated.
Ange added: “For us, it’s again about just making sure we continue with the conviction of our football, and the way we start games is important, particularly at home. Making sure that we’re working really, really hard both with and without the ball. When we do that, as has been proven, we’re difficult to stop.
“Every game has its opportunity to be tricky, the weekend game was tricky, the game before that was tricky until you overcome the challenges and we’ve been really good for the most part in overcoming those challenges.”
After a tough match at the weekend and with new signings in the building and four players returning from injury, plus recent substitutes pushing for starting spots, the Celtic manager confirmed that he’ll make a number of changes to the side. As James Forrest was put up to face the media alongside the manager, that’s usually a good indication that he’ll be one of the players to come into the team.
And with Kyogo playing plenty of football recently, maybe Giorgos Giakoumakis will get an unlikely start, given that the transfer situation appears to be nowhere near as advanced as we were all led to believe yesterday, according to what Ange was saying today…
Here’s Ange’s Media Conference with the first question being about the Greek striker who most Celtic fans appear to want to stay at the club rather than be sold for around £4 Million…tell us what you think.
