Joe Hart insists he has always looked over the horizon rather than study the ancient history of past failures in his career. And the Celtic No.1 revealed there are daily reminders from boss Ange Postecoglou that all eyes must be kept firmly on the challenges ahead.
St Mirren will arrive at Parkhead on Wednesday for the clubs’ first meeting since Saints brought a 38-game unbeaten Hoops run to a shuddering halt with a 2-0 win in Paisley in September. Celtic’s navel-gazers will also point to the collapse of their 10-in-a-row bid two seasons ago under Neil Lennon as a catastrophic event – but Hart revealed Postecoglou wants the pages to keep turning and won’t take no for an answer.
He said: “There was that little sting the year before I came here. The attitude is to analyse things and move forward, not back. If we spend time looking at things, even good things, you can get lost down a wormhole of things that happened in the past.
“We want more in the future. It’s how I love to play the game and also how I live my life. And there’s nothing better than when the main man – and everyone hangs on his every word – gives that same message.
“Football moves really quickly and complacency can’t be allowed to creep in. That’s what I’ve loved about this club over the last 18 months. We are kept on our toes because we know things can change quickly.”
The 35-year-old is happy to hand all the plaudits to St Mirren for claiming a first home win over Celtic for 12-years when they stunned the champions four months ago. It remains their only domestic defeat in this campaign so far and Hart is adamant the on-form Buddies were worthy of the points on the day.
He said: “We don’t need to lose a game to remind us of what we need to do. That’s the beauty of the way we work as a group – we have daily reminders.
“We remind each other in the way we play and the way we train. But we are a confident squad and we train the way we play. St Mirren beat us fair and square in the last game. But a lot has happened since then and we’ve taken things one game at a time.
“We didn’t get too low after the defeat but we didn’t deserve to get too low. We did okay in the game. We just didn’t do enough to win. We were maybe slightly off that day and they took advantage. It’s not a problem. It only becomes a problem if the same pattern emerges in following games – but it didn’t.”
A back four of Anthony Ralston, Stephen Welsh, Moritz Jenz and Greg Taylor was deployed in Paisley. But it was all-change against Kilmarnock last Saturday with Alistair Johnston, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Carl Starfelt and Alexandro Bernabei filling the defensive positions.
Hart is convinced whoever fills the roles will excel and he has special praise for new recruit Johnson who has had a seamless transition into the right-back role.
He said: “It doesn’t matter who plays – whether it’s Tony, Jura or Ally at right-back etc. We are confident that we have 11 starting and five off the bench who have enough to put our way of playing onto the pitch. Ally is a confident player. You have to give great credit to the recruitment at Celtic.
“They have picked a player who was ready to come into our system and our way of playing. He’s embraced it. It’s been a hard start for Ally but he’s done well and he’s a bubbly, confident guy.”
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