Ange Postecoglou has reflected back on the week that turned around Celtic’s season.
After a patchy start that include two 6-0 wins and seeing off AZ Alkmaar to reach the group stage of the Europa League the hoops were sitting on just 10 points from their first seven SPFL matches. There wasn’t much further room for error.
Kyogo Furuhashi and Callum McGregor were back from injury to face Bayer Leverkusen but a 4-0 drubbing from the Germans killed off any notions of progressing in the second tier tournament.
In truth the Leverkusen keeper was in inspired form but it is hard to find spin to take comfort from a home defeat of that magnitude.
October involved trips to Aberdeen, Hibs and Motherwell but a victory at Pittodrie was to go a long, long way.
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When we lost to Leverkusen 4-0 in the Europa League at Celtic Park, it wasn’t a 4-0 game. We played some good football on the night against a very good team.
But we lost 4-0, and when you lose 4-0 at home, that’s never good. But again, I think the players saw that ‘okay, we’re going to persist with this, it’s not going to change, this is who we are going to be’. That helped me build trust with the boys.
Our first victory away at Aberdeen, because we hadn’t won away from home since February the previous season, and we didn’t win our first three away games. Aberdeen is a tough place to go, so winning away from home, that first win propelled us.
Four points from the next three matches will guarantee the SPFL title, a win over Hearts tomorrow will mean that Celtic’s points tally can’t be overtaken.
