Unbelievable and unacceptable- Ange on his own as he blames the Celtic players

Ange Postecoglou isolated himself as he put the blame on the Celtic players for the 4-0 defeat from Bayer Leverkusen last night.

While chances were squandered around goal and mistakes heavily punished the buck stops with the manager that selected the team, tactics and substitutions.

At lunch-time on Sunday Postecoglou requires the same group of players to dig him out of a hole at Aberdeen if he is to avoid a very painful international break where his results are taken apart with very unfavourable comparisons are thrown up.

Until kick-off at Aberdeen on Sunday the Celtic manager is going to be the focus of attention, last night he attempted to distance himself from the players for the first time.

The Daily Mail reports Postecoglou saying:

We had some unbelievable opportunities. They are a good side with some quality players and they took their opportunities but we helped them as well by making some mistakes and giving them the advantage.

At this level you are going to get punished for your mistakes and you have to take your opportunities — and we didn’t.

It shouldn’t have been a 4-0 game. We fell away at the end through lack of discipline and that is unacceptable.

If you lose 4-0, the overwhelming feeling is that it has been a disappointing night, disappointing for the fans who I thought created an unbelievable atmosphere.

We have to take that disappointment and use it to as motivation to set things right in the next game. We had our own chances and if we go one 1-0 up instead of 1-0 down it becomes a different game.

Football is full of ifs, buts and maybes. Every failed manager has matches and incidents that they look back on and wonder ‘what if’.

Three months into the job Postecoglou is carrying the problems of multiple mistakes at Celtic, the players may have been at fault last night but as Tony Mowbray and Ronny Deila know the buck stops at the manager’s door with Postecoglou on his own and in the firing line.