Ange Postecoglou managed a chuckle after admitting he complained about Celtic not getting penalties - only for them to miss from the spot in an otherwise comfortable win over Livingston.
The champions restored their four point lead over Rangers at the Premiership summit with an efficient 3-0 victory at the Tony Macaroni - further diluting its reputation as their bogey ground. After five visits without a win, Postecoglou 's Celtic have now won on their last two visits, racking up six goals in the process.
It was Kyogo, Greg Taylor and the returning Jota who wrote their names on the Sunday scoresheet, the latter two coming in the second-half following the Japanese striker's early opener proved a settler for the visitors. So routine was the manner of victory, even Giorgos Giakoumakis ' VAR-awarded penalty - Celtic's first since April - only finding the post proved of no consequence. Amid controversy over a non-award in Celtic's favour in the wake of last weekend's thriller at Tynecastle, Postecoglou was left frustrated.
But the Celtic boss saw the funny side as their very next opportunity from 12 yards was passed up. Sky Sports interviewer Luke Shanley remarked "you even got a penalty today" and asked if Posteoglou was happier with the VAR process this week, and he replied: "Look, to me - if it's a penalty, you give it, if it's not, you move on. My frustration with last week was we almost wanted to use VAR.
"The less we use it the better, let's just leave it for the key moments. And, yeah, I did complain about not getting one, now we get one and we miss it, so there you go!"
Celtic were largely untroubled throughout the 90 minutes and Postecoglou reckons they could've helped themselves to even more goals. He told BBC Sportsound: "I thought it was strong, we know this is a difficult place to come to and Livingston make it hard, they work hard as a team but we were really strong in our mentality, our discipline, played our football, scored three and probably could have had a couple more."
"We had to make it that way (control the game), work hard ourselves, half the battle is the mentality, we stayed disciplined, played our football, we didn't get distracted by other things, the few times they got throw-ins or free-kicks into the box we dealt with them really well which is important our football was good after that.
"Our form from the start of the season is really strong, we've been improving every week, with the Champions League in there we have been getting challenged in other ways and the results haven't been forthcoming. But even there I just think our performances have hit a really consistent note and we need that to continue."
