Wing king Jota has joined the list of Celtic stars facing a battle to be fit for Hampden. But Ange Postecoglou is more concerned about his bid to shatter a Parkhead goal record that’s stood since the First World War.
The Hoops boss revealed Jota, Reo Hatate, Liel Abada and James Forrest are all out of today’s Premiership clash with Motherwell and scraping to make next Sunday’s Scottish Cup semi showdown with Rangers. Defender Cameron Carter-Vickers will be in the side against the Steelmen with a view to next week – despite Postecoglou refusing to shoot down Record Sport’s revelation the US star could need surgeon on a long-standing knee issue.
The Celtic gaffer brushed off the injury worries though – and revealed he has his sights set on getting over the Premiership finishing line with a record number of goals scored. Legendary manager Jimmy McGrory’s men hit 116 in the league in 1915, the Lisbon Lions stuck 111 and Brendan Rodgers’ troops hit a modern high mark of 106 in his Invincibles season.
Postecoglou’s men have already found the net 102 times with six Premiership games to go and the manager wants more. He said: “As much as we get defined by success, and that means winning trophies and games of football, the most pleasing thing for me is the number of goals we’ve scored.
“I still think that’s the best part of football. It goes beyond winning. You know with winning, sometimes you can win and not really enjoy the game.
“But no one ever doesn’t enjoy a goal. Even the most scrambling, ugliest of goals, still get celebrated. I love the fact we have scored a lot and if there is one record I’d be most proud of breaking then it would be the most goals scored by the club – because I’ll know how much joy it’s brought everyone, players, supporters, everyone involved.
“The backdrop of that is we need to win games of football and trophies, for sure, but at this club in general, the more we score the happier we are.”
Postecoglou was more coy on his injury concerns with Jota – who sat out last week’s win at Killie – the latest worry with eight days to go to Hampden. He said: “Jota, Reo, James and Liel, haven’t had a full week of training and won’t feature.
“They are close but we will wait for them to get more training in before putting them back in. They are all back training now and we will see how they go after the weekend.”
Postecoglou insisted Carter-Vickers is on board – for the short term at least. He said: “He’s fine. He trained last week, he trained all this week and he will play against Motherwell.
“The only reason he didn’t play at Kilmarnock was the pitch, which I had mentioned. He didn’t recover too well the last time we played on the artificial surface, so we left him out.
“But he’s been training and will play. That’s where it begins and ends. I can’t predict the future. If he gets through tomorrow he’ll play next week. That’s how it is.”
Celtic could go 15 points clear of second place Rangers with a win today as the are in action before their rivals for only the second time since the World Cup. The Hoops have kicked off after Gers 18 times this season – but Postecoglou admitted he didn’t even realise because his side have been so strong.
He said: “Well, we haven’t because that’s another thing we don’t notice. We are not looking at what other teams are doing.
“Whether we are playing first or second, or on a Saturday or Sunday, it’s not what is driving us. We are not going into Motherwell thinking we can get further ahead of second spot.
“We are going into the game thinking, ‘We want to put on a performance and score some goals’. If you do think about that other stuff or you worry about who plays first, then you maybe do lose focus.
“We can’t control what other teams do, or results in other games. We have to just be strong in our mindset and focus on playing our football - and getting closer to our target.
“I have two eyes and they are fixed firmly on what is most most important - and that’s Motherwell. We still have a title to win, we haven’t won that yet and anything beyond this weekend is not on my radar.”
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