With the International break done and the players finally back at Lennoxtown yesterday, Ange Postecoglou addressed the injury concerns in the Celtic squad ahead of tomorrow’s clash with Ross County at Dingwall.
At his pre-match press conference, the manager also gave his thoughts on Callum McGregor’s performances for Scotland and hopes for the remaining games of the season.
Injury Update
On the injury front, Ange confirmed that James Forrest remains side lined with Tony Ralston and Liel Abada joining him for the next couple of weeks. However, there was more positive news regarding other members of the squad.
“If I got through the ones who are definitely out; James Forest obviously is still a fair bit off, Tony Ralston and Liel Abada picked up injuries with national team and fair to say they’ll be a couple of weeks” he said. The manager then added that “Reo and Aaron are sort of back in training but we’ll just assess (their fitness) tomorrow before we make a decision. I would suggest if it’s not this weekend, that that’d probably be right for next weekend. We’ll just see how they go everyone else is okay”
The final words “everyone else is okay” will likely be met with a huge sigh of relief from the Celtic support as there were concerns over Carter-Vickers, Taylor, and Maeda going into the break. Thankfully all three appear to fine and ready to go tomorrow.
On Ross County
Ange acknowledged that Dingwall is a tough ground to go to, not least because of Malky Mackay’s ability to organise his side in a well structured set-up. However, as Tony Ralston’s 97th minute winner last season proves, this Celtic team has the ability to dig deep and get the results, even at tough away venues.
“It’s always a tough game (at Ross County). We’ve been up there a couple times already and it’s always a difficult game. Malky sets up his team very well in terms of its structure and there’s a physicality about them. They are always a threat at set pieces so we need to be careful there.”
“I think every game has significance at this point of the year. Every team’s fighting for something so there’s always going to be a little bit more of an edge and desperation to everything that happens. That doesn’t change our approach in terms of making sure that we’ve got to perform at the levels we know we can and we have been. If we do that then we know we’re going to be difficult to stop.”
On Callum McGregor (with Scotland)
Asked about Callum’s performance for Scotland during the International break, Ange was effusive in his praise of the skipper:
“I was really pleased for Callum, firstly because I know how much it means to him to play for his country. He the captain of our club and the leader of our club, and he cherishes his national team representation.”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt Callum can perform at those levels (International and Champions League) and I thought he was outstanding in both games. He played every minute of both games and you saw in the last couple of minutes of the second game that he just has this real ability and determination to give everything, every ounce out of his body. That’s what he does every time he plays.”
Constant Improvement
Despite being on a run of 14 wins in-a-row, Ange still see’s room for improvement in terms of performance, if not results.
“We’re not basing it on results, we’re basing it on performances and I think we can still improve our performances. The results are the by-product of that and we always focus on trying to be a better football team; be more aggressive in our approach, score more goals.
All those kind targets and ambitions are always there and it’s a never-ending thread where we just want to keep showing that we can play better football. Obviously, that’s not always going to transfer in terms of results. Like I said, we’re almost perfect in that stretch of games but it doesn’t mean you can’t improve performances, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
“We want to finish the season strong as we did last year. If you look at the first stretch of games and then that post World Cup middle section, we were stronger than we were in the first section. The plan is now hopefully to be stronger in this third section the final section.
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