Ridiculous- Ange Postecoglou doubles down on his BBC Scotland critic

Ange Postecoglou has followed up his defence of his side’s Champions League displays by branding criticism as ridiculous.

After losing 2-0 to RB Leipzig on Tuesday the hoops boss found his side bundled in with sides that lost 7-1 and 5-1 as the Scottish media took the easy option rather than analyse each performance on its own merits.

For more than 70 minutes Celtic were very much in the match against RB Leipzig but poor finishing denied them the chance to add more goals or points.

After four matches in the Champions League Celtic have a goal difference of 2-9, across the city Giovanni van Bronckhorst is under pressure as he stares at a record of 1-16 ahead of a trip to Napoli.

At Friday’s media conference Alasdair Lamont opted to ask a general Scottish football question with the Celtic boss very clear that his side stand or fall on their own results.

Asked by Radio Scotland whether hunger had played a part in today’s six goal performance, the Daily Record reports Postecoglou saying:

A great deal. It’s hunger, it’s ambition and it’s who we want to be. It’s why I thought some of the comments were ridiculous coming out of the Champions League about our performances. We set out to play a certain way and we have done that.

We have fallen short in areas where I think, in the most part, we can improve. It’s not through a failure of endeavour or will, and we will never change our approach.

That is what we wanted to show today, and I think that is what the players wanted to show today; what kind of team we are and what kind of team we want to be. We did that today.

Today’s win put Celtic five points clear at the top of the SPFL with 27 points from 10 matches.

1 minute 43 seconds:

AL: Just looking at the week that Scottish football teams have had in Europe. I mean I’m assuming that you think that it is better to be involved and lose than not be involved at all so can you outline what the positives are that Scottish football teams can take from being involved in these type of games?

AP: As opposed to just not being involved at all?

AL: Yeah, what I’m saying is

AP: What you are saying is just play in domestic competition and ignore everything else. Look I get your question and I understand the whole… living here for 18 months now I’ve seen the Scottish national team go from heroes to no-hopers to heroes again. So I get this whole boom-bust cycle, and getting to her and the whole ‘woe is me’. We’re not the only country that struggles to get results at Champions League level.

I can only talk for my club but if anyone can tell me that from the four games we’ve played that we don’t deserve to be there, or that we’ve been outplayed or looked out of place, then I reckon they’re talking from an agenda or some sort of bias because the questions I’ve had after each of our games is about opportunities missed.

The ‘opportunities missed’ suggests that we’ve got to improve some areas for sure, 100%, but doesn’t say that we somehow don’t belong in a competition that we’ve earned the right to be in.