Ange Postecoglou admits “the game changes very quickly” as he said the Celtic fans didn’t need a message from him over intense speculation surrounding him being a target for Leeds United.
The Aussie put assistant John Kennedy up for pre-match press duties ahead of the Scottish Cup fifth round tie against St Mirren with the Hoops cruising to a 5-1 win against the 10-man Buddies. Kennedy joked to the media that Postecoglou had been tied to a chair to prevent him leaving for Elland Road.
Postecoglou, speaking to Viaplay after the victory, said: “If anyone has seen the size of John - we don’t need security! Whatever he wants I’ll pretty much do. I’m focused on what we’re doing here and I just thought it was a good week for us to focus on training and John is a very capable guy and he handles the media well and I thought I’d have a break from everyone - and everyone can have a break for me.”
But on a more serious note, he was asked if he had a message for the fans. He said: “I don’t think the fans need a message from me. What the fans need is for me to keep making sure that our football club is represented in the right way. That’s my responsibility. If you have a player in this position where he’s getting a lot of attention the first thing you say to him is to keep playing well and don’t worry about anything else.
“I’m old enough now to know the game changes very quickly. I’m pretty blessed to be in the position I’m in. I’m working for a special football club and won’t lose sight of that but my main responsibility is making sure I prepare the team well for a game.”
Celtic were made to work against the Buddies despite an early goal from Daizen Maeda. Richard Taylor was sent off for a handball with Reo Hatate netting the resulting penalty and he grabbed another with Oh and Matt O’Riley also on target.
But the downside was an early shoulder injury to Kyogo. Postecoglou said: “We’ll see how it is. He’ll get a scan tomorrow. Obviously there’s an issue there. He’s a pretty quick healer so hopefully it won’t be anything too serious but we were disappointed to lose him.
On the game, he added: “There’s no reviews of cup losses. You just bin them and that’s it. Whatever lessons you need to learn, you want to learn them while progressing to the next round. That’s the nature of cup football. We knew that coming into the tie.
“It was a real good cup tie. They came at us and put in a helluva shift to try and stop us and credit to them but the lads stuck at it and towards the end of the game, them going a man down didn’t help, but I just thought we were getting stronger and a great contribution from the guys off the bench.”
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