Despondent is a strong word- Ange hits back with strong defence as he promises no change to Champions League approach

Ange Postecoglou has railed against any suggestion of despondency about Celtic’s Champions League campaign.

One point from four matches has closed the door on qualification with only an outside chance of Celtic avoiding bottom spot in Group F.

On the surface that appears to be a disappointing return but in all four matches Celtic have matched strong opponents for long spells, away to Shakhtar Donetsk it certainly felt like two points dropped rather than one gained.

What has been consistent through all four matches is Celtic’s attacking instinct, a good number of chances have been created but for one reason or another shots that find the net domestically are striking the post under the Champions League lights.

Celtic have two more matches to play with the approach not altering in a bid to achieve a couple of ‘face saving results.

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When one fan suggested that it was easy to feel despondent about being bottom of the group the Celtic boss picked up on using that phrase

Despondent is a strong word. I’d hate to think that people who have been following us, especially our supporters, feel that way. If nothing else I understand that they’d be disappointed but, as I said from the outset, we set out to play a certain way. Despondent would mean that if I said we were going to play attacking football and we hadn’t created any chances. You’d be shaking your head going ‘what is this guy talking about’

We obviously have really high ambitions about our ability to compete at this level. Every game is an opportunity to progress that and the only way that I believe you can progress that is to really test yourself.

Testing yourself for us is to try and go in there and play our football . I can go out there tomorrow, get a 1-0 victory and everyone goes home really happy but within my gut if we haven’t played good football that doesn’t really mean progress to me.

We may finish bottom of the group as you said, I hope that doesn’t send people into despondency. I’m pretty sure that our supporters, what they’ve experienced and what they’ve seen is a team trying really to maintain their identity against the toughest of oppositions.

There’s some merit in that, I think that is where you learn and develop and that’s our goal in the next two games. It is not so much focussing on outcomes of games- can we be the football team that we want to be against the very best. If we fall short we dust ourselves off and go again.