ANGE Postecoglou joined his players Kyogo Furuhashi, Sead Haksabanovic and Stephen Welsh at the SEC in Glasgow on Thursday night to take in the first showing of Celtic the Musical and relished every minute of the experience.
“It was good to be there,” he said. “It was a really good show. Everyone had a lot of fun. I get to meet the fans every weekend at games, but it was nice to be a bit closer to them. Everyone was really kind and respectful. It’s nice to be part of it all.
"You know the history, but it’s fantastic to see it all laid out in front of you. It goes to show it’s more than just a football club, it’s more than that. You can see that through the people in the show and in the crowd. These stories get passed down and you create a legacy. That’s what it’s all about.”
The performance which Postecoglou took the greatest interest in this week, though, came in Warsaw the previous evening when Celtic squared up to Shakhtar Donetsk in their second Champions League group game of the season.
The Scottish champions earned rave reviews for their display against their Ukrainian rivals in Poland and received a standing ovation from their delighted fans at the end of the 90 minutes despite behind held to a 1-1 draw.
But their Greek-Australian manager is a far harsher critic.
He was certainly encouraged by how his charges, who dominated long spells of the match and took the lead early on when a Reo Hatate shot was deflected in, acquitted themselves on the European stage. But he believes there is considerable room for improvement. He is now looking for an encore.
Postecoglou, whose team return to domestic action tomorrow when they play St Mirren in a cinch Premiership match in Paisley, believes Celtic must perform from kick-off to the final whistle, not just in cameos, to progress in the premier continental club competition.
“I was really pleased,” he said. “We know at Champions League level it's hard to dominate games, especially away from home, and keep the opposition to minimal threat. The boys handled it really well. We were disappointed not to get the win, but if we keep going down this road the wins will come.
“It’s part of the process of us becoming a legitimate Champions League team. You do that by playing games and getting experience, to get that understanding of what it takes to win games at this level. I couldn’t ask any more of the players. If we keep performing like that I’m sure it will come.
“It’s going to be a tight group (Real Madrid required two late goals to defeat RB Leipzig in the Bernabeu), but from our perspective it’s about trying to keep playing our football and understanding the areas we still need to improve on. Every time we go out we want to get a little better.”
Postecoglou added: “It’s still a process. People need to understand that 12 months ago a lot of these boys who played the other night hadn’t played anywhere near this level. They’ve made enormous progress over the last year, individually and as a team, and we want to make sure we continue it.
“We want to be the kind of team that can control games. Even in the first game, everyone saw we broke even against arguably the best side in Europe for 55 minutes. We need to be able to do that for longer stretches of the games and become consistently a team that can dominate matches.
“That doesn’t happen overnight. It requires a lot of work. But we’ve put the system in place and the players are all willing participants. They are enjoying it and want more.”
Postecoglou made two late additions to what was already a stellar squad before the summer transfer window closed last month – Danish midfielder Oliver Abildgaard and Montenegrin winger Sean Haksabanovic both arrived from Russian club Rubin Kazan.
Abildgaard has not had a full pre-season and will not be ready to make his bow until after the international break. But Haksabanovic made his first start against Shakhtar and was involved in the build-up to the opening goal. His manager is hopeful that far more is to come from his new recruit in the months ahead.
“He was really good,” he said. “He’s settling in well. He’s a very good player. We knew that 45 minutes was the maximum we’d get out of him the other night and it worked out that way. But we’ve seen the quality he has got in training. It’s just about building his fitness up.
“He is fitting in really well to the environment we have created here and he gives us a good option in the wide areas with his technical ability and his finishing. I think he’ll be a really big goal threat for us. After Sunday and the international break he'll really be ready to get going.
“Sead is very serious about his football and he’s very ambitious as well. There’s no better club than here to show those attributes.”
Postecoglou will expect all of his players to be on song tomorrow when they return to a ground where they dropped two precious points last December and to treat St Mirren every bit as seriously as Shakhtar.
“It’s no different a challenge for us,” he said. “It’s the same challenge irrespective of who we are playing against.
“We’ve shown this year we want to make sure we are the best we can be – that’s whether it’s the Champions League, the league or the cup competitions. We have been pretty consistent in our approach of the next game being the most important and we want to put our best foot forward again.
“St Mirren’s form has been pretty good this year and we know it’s a tough place to go, as we saw last year. From our perspective, we’ve started the league campaign really strong and we want to continue that trend.”
