ANGE POSTECOGLOU has reminded his blundering Celtic players there is no hiding place after their abysmal showing in the 6-2 flop against West Ham at Parkhead yesterday.
The seething Hoops boss watched in horror as his side collapsed to an embarrassing landslide defeat to Davie Moyes’ London team.
Postecoglou saw his problems pile up ahead of Wednesday’s crucial Champions League second round qualifier return against FC Midtjylland in Denmark with the tie balanced at 1-1. His fragile defence, with rookies Stephen Welsh and Dane Murray at the heart of it, was decimated by streetwise Michail Antonio who scored his side’s first two goals after Callum McGregor had opened the scoring in the eighth minute.
Neil Lennon’s successor, who has now gone three games in eight days at home without a win, ordered his players to stand up and be counted as the pressure mounts.
The former Australia international manager also saw Mark Noble slot away a penalty-kick to make it 3-1 at the interval while Said Benrahma, Jarrod Bowen and ex-Hoops kid Armstrong Okoflex piled on the agony in the second-half.
Ryan Christie netted shortly after the turnaround before the roof fell in on the Hoops who kick off the Premiership with a trip to Edinburgh for an 8pm start against Hearts on Saturday.
Postecoglou said: “You can’t go hiding – I’m not going to go hiding. They’ve just got to stand up and take responsibility for whatever situation arises both good and bad.
“I can’t shield them from it. When you represent this football club and play football in general, you can’t shield people.
“Part of the process is to stand up to things like this when things aren’t going well and react in a positive way.
“Sometimes even in the good you get carried away with things. It wasn’t about individuals. We were just poor collectively defensively.”
Postecoglou, speaking to Premier Sports, added: “Our whole premise is to defend as a unit and attack as a unit. The attacking bit was okay, but defensively we were poor all over the place.
“There were some bright things, but there some things that weren’t acceptable and it was disappointing overall.
“West Ham are quality opposition and you kind of hope you don’t expose individuals to that, but irrespective there are things that are very disappointing.
“You learn lessons, but I’d much rather learn lessons having a conviction about something rather than just acknowledging they’ve got some better individual quality. We just wasted an opportunity.”
