ANGE POSTECOGLOU has watched Celtic win three crucial games in succession, but the manager insists: “We still have work to do.”
The Hoops boss is preparing his squad for this afternoon’s Premier Sports League Cup semi-final dress rehearsal against St Johnstone at Parkhead this afternoon following three wins in a row against Aberdeen at Pittodrie, Motherwell at Fir Park and Ferencvaros in Glasgow.
Postecoglou has seen encouraging signs within his team and is determined to continue the momentum against Callum Davidson’s Perth side, last season’s double Cup winners.
The Greek-Australian said: “I felt we had a real composure as a team during those last three games to not get knocked off what we were trying to do.
FULLY FOCUSED…Ange Postecoglou is driving Celtic forward.
“From my perspective, that means the players are starting to believe in the process and starting to believe in our football where they can take control of things themselves without me having to intervene too much.
“That’s been the most pleasing thing. I think we’ve controlled games pretty well – the last three games, knowing they were difficult games, and that was probably something that was missing from our earlier performances, which were good, but as we’ve all highlighted, there were moments in games where we lost our composure.
“However, we haven’t had that in the last three games.”
Postecoglou, speaking to Celtic TV, added: “Our performances have been really good since the international break. We’re getting some players back which is helping us enormously, not just from a playing perspective but also from a training perspective.
“Our training’s really been at good levels now and good intensity because the quality of the players we have training now is better, so all of these things are helping, but we still have work to do and we’ve still got to make sure that we’re focused on continually improving the way we play our football.”
Josip Juranovic and James McCarthy have both recovered from recent injuries and are including in the squad for the visit of the McDiarmid Park outfit, but there is still no sign of Christopher Jullien, James Forrest and Greg Taylor who are continuing their rehab.
* DON’T miss the unbeatable match report from Celtic v St Johnstone at Parkhead this afternoon – only in your champion CQN.
