Walk Off? Ange Postecoglou responds to question over taking his players off the pitch at Ibrox

Ange Postecoglou is putting his trust in the authorities to deal fully with the incidents that blighted last Sunday’s Glasgow derby. 

A Celtic physio required stitches to a head wound after being struck by a bottle while the second half was delayed by five minutes after Joe Hart alerted the matc referee to broken glass in his penalty area. 

There were other incidents of missiles being thrown at Celtic players with one picture showing a large number of glass bottles collected after the match. It is against the law to take a glass container into a football match in Scotland. 

Social media carried claims of items being thrown at the 700 strong Celtic support but when asked if he considered taking his players off the pitch the Celtic boss stated clearly that that wouldn’t be his decision. 

 15 minutes 20 seconds: 

QUESTION: Would you have considered taking players off the park had the situation deteriorated further? 

POSTECOGLOU: Look, from my perspective, whenever those kind of things happen, you know, through my career I’ve been involved in, at times when things have got out of hand in the game. It was disappointing what happened, both for our member of staff and the glass on the pitch, apart from that, as I said I thought that the atmosphere was unbelievable. 

Our 700 were making noise, their crowd was making noise, there was a great atmosphere and it was spoiled. We also have a responsibility on the field to be understanding and measured on how we deal with these things. We can’t, as players and people participants in the event be as emotional as everyone else is in those circumstances. 

From my perspective, when those things happen, I put the responsibility on the people in charge, the authorities to deal with them as quickly as possible, as expediently as possible for the safety of everyone involved. 

I’m not going to get involved because it is not my area, that’s where people get it wrong. I think, when people who aren’t involved. As I say when I have a pretty clear responsibility with my football club and I take that pretty seriously so if something comes across my desk that I’m responsible for I will make sure that it is addressed. 

If it is something that is outwith my control my role then is to make sure that those people address it in the right way.

I think in the game at the weekend it was addressed as quickly as we possibly could, it was dealt with, we got on with the game and hopefully now the authorities will deal with the culprits  

So far there has been no comment from the SFA or SPFL into investigating incidents from the match.