Ange Postecoglou is renowned for sticking to what he believes in. It’s the Celtic manager’s MO.
He came to Glasgow with an idea of how he wanted his team to play and has never veered from it. The Parkhead gaffer recoils at the thought of ditching his principles. But with the Champions League group stage draw coming up on Thursday, age-old questions will rear their head again. Can Celtic play the same cavalier style against Europe’s big boys, the attacking football they produce every week in the Premiership?
Can Postecoglou’s side really go for the throats of Manchester City, Bayern Munich, PSG or Real Madrid? And if they do, will they simply be picked off at will and end up with a bloody nose? The same applied to Brendan Rodgers when he was in the Celtic hotseat. Like Postecoglou, he couldn’t go against his beliefs. Domestically, it got them unparalleled success. And in the Champions League, who will forget the electric performance against Pep Guardiola’s City in a 3-3 draw at Celtic Park? Or scudding Anderlecht 3-0 away from home?
But the flip side to that was 7-0 and 7-1 hammerings at the hands of PSG and Barcelona respectively, as well as a 3-0 mauling in Munich. A few weeks ago, Hoops midfielder Matt O’Riley revealed that Postecoglou had started working on ideas for coming up against Europe’s elite.
So will we see a change in approach, depending on who comes out of the hat with the Scottish champions this week? Postecoglou accepts there might have to be tweaks against the world’s best sides. But change to a more defensive style? Not on his watch.
The manager said: “We try to train every day as if we’re preparing to play against the best. That’s part of the reason for our transfer business this summer – to have a really strong squad that ensures the training level is high.
“Every player has competition for his place, a player beside him who can push him to another level. Those types of things raise the intensity and level – and improve players.
“In terms of our game, it’s constantly evolving and improving. It has to because last season we’d just put a team together.
"Whatever we did a year ago was just the base. We want to develop as a team and be stronger. That’s what we’re working on. It’s been a strange start to the campaign, only having one game a week.
“But that has allowed us to work on things at training that we couldn’t do last year and that will help us.
“A lot of people will say I can’t do things or we can’t do things. That’s a great motivator for us.
“The proof will be in the pudding. We certainly won’t change our approach in the Champions League matches.
“It’s only natural when you play against better opposition that it affects your own game.
“There will be adjustments we make because of the opposition we’re up against.
“But for me it’s all about your intent. Are you trying to survive or trying to make an impact? We’ll always be a team trying to make an impact.”
Another area of Celtic’s play that appears to have been strengthened this season is their threat from set-plays. In their opening three Premiership games, they’ve scored four goals from either first or second phases at corners.
Postecoglou has praised assistant coach Gavin Strachan for his work on set-pieces – and believes they now have the players to cause teams major problems on that front.
He said: “It’s just the natural evolution of the team. Gavin is in charge of that area and puts a lot of work into it. There’s been a change in personnel and we’ve got players who really attack the ball.
“Cameron Carter-Vickers scored four goals last season from centre-half so it’s good to see defenders contributing.
“We’ve got guys like O’Riley, David Turnbull, Aaron Mooy and Jota who have very good delivery.
“We want to hurt teams in different ways. If they close us down we have to find different ways to score.
“Gavin puts a lot of work into it and we now have the players to capitalise on it.”
Hearts could be the next ones to suffer this afternoon at Parkhead. The Jambos are coming off the back of a Europa League play-off first-leg defeat to FC Zurich in midweek.
But Postecoglou reckons Robbie Neilson’s side have a fighting chance of reaching the group stage and, if they do, it will only make them stronger.
He said: “Hearts have had a couple of strong years under Robbie. With European football this season, it will definitely help them.
“It gives players more confidence when they test themselves against other sides in Europe and they take that into the league.
“They’re still in the tie after Thursday night and hopefully they’ll get into the Europa League.
“Every team you come up against in this league is tough.
“If someone can tell me what game is a gimme, please do. But we know that if we play our football, we’re hard to stop.”
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