ANGE POSTECOGLOU expects that Hearts’ forays into Europe this season will improve the capital outfit as the Celtic manager prepares to face Robbie Neilson’s men at Parkhead this afternoon.
For Hearts, today’s meeting in the league is sandwiched between two fixtures against FC Zurich in the Europa League play-off. The first leg in Switzerland finished 2-1 to the Super League champions and Postecoglou hopes to see the Jambos progress to the group stage proper.
Even if Zurich progress to the next round and the Tynecastle side are knocked out of the competition, group-stage European football is already assured thanks to the introduction of the Europa Conference League.
Hearts have made a lot of progress in a relatively short space of time on Neilson’s watch. It wasn’t all that long ago that the 42-year-old returned to the club tasked with securing promotion from the Championship, and Postecoglou believes that playing in Europe, in a higher standard of competition, can only be to the benefit of this afternoon’s opponents.
“Hearts have had a couple of strong years under Robbie and did well last season,” said the Celtic manager. “With European football this season, I think it will definitely help them.
“It gives players more confidence when they test themselves against other sides in Europe. They take that confidence - particularly if they get positive results - into the league.
“It’s great for them as a football club. They’re still in the tie after Thursday night and hopefully they’ll get into the Europa.
“Every team you come up against in this league is tough. If someone can tell me what game is a gimme, please do. No one thought we’d go to Kilmarnock and get an easy game, it was the same the previous week against Ross County.
“We approach them the same way. What’s key for us is that we’re the best we can be. We know that if we play our football, we’re hard to stop.”
Three of Postecoglou’s compatriots – centre-half Kye Rowles, full-back Nathan Atkinson and midfielder Cammy Devlin – will be amongst the visiting players in Glasgow’s east end this afternoon after completing moves from Australia to the Scottish capital over the last year.
Devlin has probably been the pick of the bunch thus far after joining last summer but Atkinson put together an impressive string of performances towards the end of last season as Hearts reached the Scottish Cup final, while Rowles – who only signed for the club during the close season – a caught the eye early on in his stint in Scotland.
Postecoglou believes that the A-League in his homeland is proving to be excellent value for money these days, and feels that there are certain guarantees that can be relied upon when recruiting Aussies.
“I think it’s a good market for Scottish clubs,” he said. “It’s happened in the past and these things maybe go in phases. Five or 10 years ago, there were a few Aussies here at Celtic, Rangers and Hearts. There’s always been a pretty strong Australian influence.
“Hearts signed Cammy Devlin last year and I thought he was outstanding for them. That probably encouraged them to go back into that market. There’s good value there. You know what you’re getting with Australian footballers.
“Irrespective of ability, they’re all strong characters who work hard at training and give everything in games. There’s certainly some value there and Hearts have picked up some good ones. The others can definitely make an impact there.
“And Scotland is a good platform for Aussie footballers. It’s a big step in their career, it’s a competitive league and it puts them in the shop window if they have aspirations to go higher.
“But you still have to perform at a good level here in the Premiership to make sure they’re seen. This is a good first step for these players.”
Hearts arrive in Glasgow this afternoon facing an unenviable task. Celtic have started the campaign in imperious fashion, racking up 10 goals and nine points in their opening three games, and the champions have not been gingerly feeling their way into contests so far this season.
Both Kilmarnock and Aberdeen have found themselves trailing Postecoglou’s team within a matter of minutes after kick-off this season, and the Greek-Australian expects his players to be ready from the first whistle this afternoon.
“We’re fast starters but we’re also fast finishers,” Postecoglou observed. “We want to play at a certain tempo and intensity for the whole game.
“We don’t want to have dips during games. We don’t want to start slowly, have a drop off in the middle or tail off at the end. You saw last week that we started fast but in the 89th minute we were still closing down the opposition trying to get a fifth and sixth goal.
“That’s who we are as a club, it’s who we want to be. Sometimes we start fast but don’t score. That doesn’t mean we haven’t had an impact. When we do finally score, it’s because we’ve put so much pressure on the opposition.
“Starting well with our tempo is big for us. But maintaining it for the full 95 minutes is also important.”
Postecoglou has often talked about building on last season’s foundations to evolve this term, adding an extra degree of sophistication to his system now that the players have been grounded in his ideas. The coach wants to add a few more strings to his team’s bow, to offer alternative methods of hurting the opposition, and they appear to have done just that during the close season.
Celtic have carried a real threat from set-pieces three game into the new season, scoring from multiple corners already, but Postcoglou insists that he cannot take the credit for the improvement from dead-ball situations.
He explained: “It’s just the natural evolution of the team. Gavin Strachan is in charge of that area and puts a lot of work into it. There’s been a change in personnel, we’ve got players who really attack the ball.
“Cameron Carter-Vickers scored four goals last season from centre-half so it’s good to see defenders contributing. We’ve got guys like [Matt] O’Riley, [David] Turnbull, [Aaron] Mooy and Jota who have very good delivery.
“We want to hurt teams in different ways. If they close us down we have to find different ways to score. Gavin puts a lot of work into it and we now have the players to capitalise on it.”
