Ange Postecoglou defended toothless Celtic after their title slip against Hibs.
And the Parkhead boss doesn't buy any narrative that their world has collapsed because two points were shipped at Easter Road.
Postecoglou hunted out positivity following the 0-0 draw, which proved an opportunity missed as Rangers went on to drop two points of their against Motherwell at Ibrox.
The title-chasers could not turn large swathes of possession into victory in Edinburgh.
But, despite the shot-shy show, Postecoglou stayed on the offensive and said: “It was a good performance. We dominated the game, we played it on our terms, but obviously we didn’t get our rewards and didn’t get the goal we needed.
“I thought the players, at a difficult venue on a difficult pitch with the opposition sitting deep for the most part, were good.
“Football is a challenging game. When the opposition set up like that, it is not the easiest to get a goal and that was all that was missing. It wasn’t through a want of trying.
“I get it. We didn’t win, the world has collapsed, I understand that.
“But, from my perspective, when you come away from home and you dominate an opposition at what is traditionally a tough venue and you don’t get the win, you’re disappointed because I think our play deserved it.
“If this football club doesn’t win every week, there’s obviously an expectation.
“That’s fine. I’m not here to tell people what to think or what their assessment of the game is.
“I’m here to give my assessment of the game. People might have a different view and that’s fine.
“It’s hard when the opposition sits so deep. There are so many bodies in the box to try and find ways through.
“There were a couple of times when the ball just didn’t bounce our way in critical areas. But I thought the players' efforts were excellent.
“You’ve got to understand football is not played in perfect isolated conditions.
“You’re talking about an opposition whose main role is to try and stop you, a pitch that is not conducive to moving the ball quickly.
“Within that the players were still brave, they were still passing into the right areas, we still got into the right areas.
“If we had scored, no-one would be questioning our performance. I’m disappointed the players didn’t get the rewards they deserved.”
Celtic were without ill striker Giorgos Giakoumakis as they failed to net, but Postecoglou added: “I don’t think we missed him.
“Giako wasn’t going to make us play any better than we did. We played well enough, we just weren’t able to score a goal.”
Hibs tried to kill time near the end as they ran on empty and Postecoglou admitted that brought some frustration.
He said: “I’m not a fan of it, but I get why teams do it. What do you do? That’s part of football and that’s part of the challenge.”
Celtic now face St Mirren on Wednesday as they aim to stay top of the pile and the boss said: “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.
“We will continue to play our football that has got us into this position and make sure we keep our performance levels up. And with that you’ll get the outcomes you want.
“The feedback I’ll give the boys is that we controlled a game of football away from home.
“Okay we didn’t score, but from a performance perspective, we’ve just got to keep doing that and we’ll get our goals.”
