LIAM SCALES insists Celtic will have to up their game if they hope to be successful in the upcoming season.
The champions somehow managed to survive the turmoil – on and off the pitch – of last term to claim their fifth successive title and add a 43rd Scottish Cup.
The Hoops lost EIGHT Premiership games and were looking up the table at Hearts who were in pole position from September until the last league game of the campaign on May 16 when the champions completed an extraordinary recovery to claim the crown with a 3-1 triumph over the Edinburgh outfit at Parkhead.
For long enough, though, it appeared Scotland’s title kings would complete their crusade with nothing to show for their efforts.
HAIL, HAIL…Liam Scales congratulates Arne Engels after the midfielder’s goal to make it 2-0 in the 3-1 Scottish Cup Final triumph over Dunfermline. Benjamin Nygren, Alistair Johnston and Yang Hyun-jun join in.
Two back-to-back away league games – Dundee (0-2) and Hearts (1-3) – were lost before Brendan Rodgers’ rapid departure in late October.
Martin O’Neill took over in an interim capacity before being replaced in December by the wretched Wilfried Nancy who saw the team drop 12 points to Hearts (1-2), Dundee United (1-2), Motherwell (0-2) and Rangers (1-3) before he got the boot after 33 chaotic days.
O’Neill returned in early January and lost only twice – Hibs (1-2) and Dundee United (0-2) – in his 19 league outings.
The last time a team lost eight matches in the top division and still won the championship was in 1935 when the Ibrox club succeeded in a term in which the Hoops were defeated on 10 occasions.
Realising Celtic cannot hope to repeat the feat in successive seasons, Republic of Ireland international Scales said: “We know we need to be better. We need to get more points and to win more games.
“I feel that’s possible because last season was full of disruptions. There was a lot of outside noise and having so many different managers meant it was hard to get that rhythm.
PRIZE GUY…a triumphant Liam Scales holds aloft the Scottish Cup.
“I feel like there is room to improve. We’ve won a lot of games under the current staff.
“They’re pushing us to improve and to try to win games more comfortably and be more dominant.
“The standard of the league last year was really high and teams tried to play more. You had Motherwell and Hibs doing what they did.
“It was a bit different to previous years, when the majority of teams were going direct.
“You knew they’d sit deep off the ball and we were going to dominate possession.
“Last season became more of a fight to dominate possession against a few more teams. We can learn from that and be better at that. That’s the place we need to improve for next season.”
Scales, speaking to the Scottish Sun, continued: “Stability is a key thing. We didn’t have a pre-season under Martin last season as we have now. That’s going to help a lot.
“When you have a game every three or four days, there isn’t time really to work on principles and how you want to play.
GOVAN GLEE…Liam Scales, captain in place of the injured Callum McGregor, celebrates the pemalty-kick shoot-out triumph in the Scottish Cup quarter-final at Ibrox in March. Auston Trusty congratulates Tomas Cvancara on his deciding spot-kick.
“All you’re looking at is how we’re going to win the next game. It’s harder to look at the bigger picture and what our principles are going to be.
“We’ve spent a lot more time working on those things, so that’s going to help massively.”
Following a 1-1 draw against Shelbourne in Dublin, a 4-1 loss to Sporting Lisbon in Portugal and a 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough at Parkhead, the Hoops are now preparing for the visit of AC Milan on Saturday before the competitive action kicks off against Dundee a week on Monday.
Scales added: “You can’t be one-dimensional. Going direct doesn’t need to be a hoofed ball forward to a big striker.
“It’s noticing there’s space behind teams and putting the ball in behind. We have attacking players who can do that.
“If you can beat that press with one pass into a striker, it’s that, too. It’s not about changing things massively. Fast attacking football is what the manager wants.”
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