ANGE POSTECOGLOU’S football mantra has been drummed into his Celtic players.
Since day one, the Hoops gaffer has not shown the slightest hint of wavering from his ideals.
Postecoglou rounded on the reporter who termed the Champions League exit to FC Midtjylland in July last year as “a catastrophe”. Clearly, he did not agree and told the media man.
Three defeats at Tynecastle, Ibrox and Livingston in the first six Premiership outings could have seen the Greek-Australian have a complete rethink. He refused and Parkhead fans can see the benefits in today’s performances.
EURO VISION…Ange Postecoglou on Champions League media duty.
The league title and the Premier Sports League Cup were duly delivered in the manager’s first season and it’s full speed ahead in his second crusade as he focuses on making another refreshing impression on the domestic and European fronts.
Filipe Jota is a fully paid-up member of the Postecoglou Fan Club and the Portuguese flyer is delighted to be given the opportunity to display his full range of skills after his £6.5million permanent deal from Benfica in the summer.
The fans’ favourite reflected on the 3-0 loss to Real Madrid and looked ahead at the same time as he pointed out: “Stick to our principles, keep working hard. We have plenty of games to go and that is what we are going to do.
“I don’t want to stop here, I just want to keep improving.
“We don’t compare ourselves with the other teams. We compare ourselves with each other and just think about each other, that’s the most important thing. We just need to focus on ourselves, see what mistakes we did and go strong in the next one.
“This is a Celtic team, we always want to win, of course, but we know that in the Champions League there are very difficult games. Real Madrid is a top, top team, one of the best in the world, so now I think we just have to learn from our mistakes and go on to the next one.”
PARADISE…Filipe Jota accepts the acclaim of the Celtic support.
Jota, speaking to the Daily Record, continued: “Well, we knew that we had to have personality inside the pitch, we needed to remain humble and just to play our game and that’s what we tried to do.
“We know that we had our chances, we didn’t score, and we know that when these teams have their chances they take them, and that’s it. Next time, we just need to take ours.
“I just can’t wait until the next one to get better and to get better results.
“We’ll take confidence, we work hard every day to play against these teams, this is our aim – so, we are just going to keep on working hard and try to get better results.
“This is what dreams are made of. When I was young I used to see them on TV and I would say to myself: ‘One day I want to be playing Champions League with these guys and compete against them.’
“It was a very happy day for me and my family because I got the opportunity to do that against some of the best players in the world.
JOY BHOY…Filipe Jota aims to make the fans happy.
“It was definitely something unbelievable to play in this stadium with this atmosphere and this crowd in the Champions League. So, we just want to make our supporters happy, and we promise that every time we go out onto the pitch we are going to give everything for the shirt.”
Jota added: “I’m just grateful to belong to this club. The support from the fans from every minute of this game shows that it is amazing.
“We are just grateful to have this support from everyone and the one thing we can promise them is that we will work hard every day to try to deliver them results.”
Back in June last year after Postecoglou’s first training session at Lennoxtown, CQN stated: “It’s not going to be dull with Big Ange around, that’s for sure.”
We see no reason to alter that statement.
