Ange Postecoglou insists Celtic are ready to double down on their domestic dominance with a recruitment drive which has signings already identified for this summer.
The Hoops boss has overseen a relentless campaign which delivered the Viaplay Cup trophy last Sunday and they will attempt to bank a 24th win from their last 25 games when they meet St Mirren today. After outlining plans to bolster his squad in the next transfer window, Postecoglou admits his focus is on powering on when they arrive in Paisley. He said: “We are always trying to improve and as you said the results have been outstanding. As importantly, so have the performances. We are really strong and are getting stronger
“That is always our focus. Sometimes the performances are not always there even when the performances are but we have kind of married the two this year for the most part which has been great. We want to continue that until the end of the year and be strong. We are constantly looking at how we can be stronger for next year.
“I think if you look at every window since I have been here we have strengthened and we are already doing work to make sure we come out of the next window even stronger than when we enter it. That has got to be our ambition every time we enter this process.”
Postecoglou is also looking to add fresh faces at the earliest opportunity after a successful recruitment strategy which is based on bringing players in at the beginning of the window and not leaving transfer business to the last minute. He said: “Getting them in early has worked well for us. It has allowed players to come in and settle and contribute straight away and we will continue to do that.”
With a clash at St Mirren followed by a Premiership clash with Hearts on Wednesday before a trip to face the Jambos on Scottish Cup duty on Saturday, Postecoglou believes he has comfort in numbers within his squad and he’s ready to give the likes of Yuki Kobayashi, Tomoki Iwata and Hyeongyu Oh more game time.
He said: “They are available. We have got a strong squad, knock on wood everyone is fit and healthy.
“Since the break we have guys who, whether they are starting or not, are making big impacts on games. We are going to need that because we have three games in a week coming up, starting on Sunday with St Mirren and the Hearts back to back.
“A strong squad will help us navigate that and make sure our performance stays at a high level.
“It is not just those guys (Kobayashi, Iwata and Oh), guys like Haksabanovic, Abada, Tony Ralston, Bernabei are all fit and ready to go and they are good quality players for us. So we will put out a team on Sunday that we think can win then we will see what the wash up is and look to put out a good core of players again for midweek.
“Our training this week has been outstanding, really competitive because we have 22 players who all want to play and all want to contribute. Having three games next week will allow us to utilise that as much as we can.”
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