Ange Postecoglou has used the FA Cup third round shocks as a warning ahead of Celtic's trip to Hampden to face Kilmarnock.
The Premiership duo go head to head at the national stadium with a spot in the Viaplay Final up for grabs for the winner. The Hoops are the holders of the competition - previously known as the Premier Sports Cup - and will head to the south side of Glasgow as favourites to reach the showpiece event.
However, Postecoglou has pointed to the numerous weekend upsets down south in their domestic cup competition to emphasise that there is a different element to cup football. Both sides faced each other at Parkhead in the league last weekend with the Scottish champions running out 2-0 winners thanks to Jota and an Ash Taylor own goal. But the 57-year-old has warned that win counts for nothing ahead of Saturday evening. He told Celtic TV: “You just have to look at what happened down south in the FA Cup over the weekend and cup football in general, I’ve been around long enough to know that there’s always a different element to it.
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“I think it allows players to play with less fear even though there’s so much on edge because when you aren’t expected to win you have nothing to lose. It’s not like you’re losing three points and falling behind in the table. You give it all out there and see what comes of it and we need to be ready to deal with that and have the same sort of mentality.
"It’s a unique situation where you’re playing the same team [after beating Killie last weekend]. I’ve no doubt Derek McInnes will have his team up for it and we have to be ready and we’ll be up for it as well.”
On tasting cup success last season in this competition, he added: “In the context of where we were on our journey, to win a trophy early certainly helped fast-track a lot of the things that I wanted to implement.
“When you win a major trophy in the first three months of your tenure it just garners belief in everything you’re doing and accelerates everyone’s learnings and they all want more of it.
“We’re talking about having success, it’s not something abstract, and you felt it as part of a group so certainly in the context of where we are now it was a very important part of our season.”
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