When Ange Postecoglou uses the word mate during a media conference it is rarely as a compliment.
The Celtic boss faces similar voices and similar questions four times a week with the pre-match conferences almost always conducted by Zoom.
Following Saturday’s draw at home to Livingston the main topic for discussion was the missed penalty by Giorgos Giakoumakis. Celtic fans have watched greats like Henrik Larsson and Chris Sutton miss penalties but the main frustration was that Josip Juranovic didn’t take the penalty after scoring twice from 12 yards in recent games.
Postecoglou explained on Saturday that it was his decision to put the former VVV Venlo striker on penalties but that didn’t really reduce the level of debate as fans fretted over two lost points.
It sounded like Gordon Duncan of Radio Clyde that asked the question about Giakoumakis was after his penalty miss, the tone of the reply however sounded fairly familiar.
9 minutes 15 seconds
Mate, I haven’t been paying too much attention to be fair. He’s a striker mate, a number nine you know. You know you don’t become number nine for Celtic and hide somewhere when a penalty is up for grabs in the last minute of a game, yeah?
So, I reckon he’d be disappointed of he didn’t take it, I’d like to think that he would be. So that is his challenge. That, you come to a big club, you’re a striker, you’re expected to score goals you’re not expected to be protected from that.
You know, it was disappointing for him I guess personally but from a team perspective we’re not going to hang it on him that he missed a penalty.
Like I said it was my decision to put him up there so, that’s the way it is and I expect him to bounce back as he should. He is going to get more opportunities to win games for us, I assume he’ll want to be front and centre for that.
