Ange Postecoglou fired back at critics as Celtic failed to defeat St Mirren at Parkhead in the Scottish Premiership this afternoon.
The Hoops boss was far from pleased by his team's display as they shared the spoils with Stephen Robinson's side after losing to Rangers last weekend.
Curtis Main grabbed a double for the visitors, but goals from Kyogo Furuhashi and Callum McGregor ultimately earned the Scottish Champions a point.
Speaking to the BBC, Postecoglou responded to criticism aimed at his team. He said: “I don’t know. We are champions.
“I get it that people are so obsessed. The heavyweight champion of the world does not have to win every round, but he holds the belt.
“We hold the belt. People can try and write narratives, but we play games of football with certain underlying principles because we want to enjoy it and we want our fans to enjoy it.
“We haven’t done that in the past couple of weeks but we all know if anyone looks at this team and sees anything other than a champion then they look at things that have been.”
“I think the loss of Cameron Carter-Vickers is evident. You are bringing guys in, is it maybe just a lack of game time?”
Postecoglou was also asked if Cameron Carter-Vickers was a big miss, given he has mixed his defensive line since the American played his final game of the season in the Scottish Cup semi-final against Rangers.
He continued: “Oh look, I guarantee 1000 per cent it is not one player. It has nothing to do with Cameron Carter-Vickers.
“We have missed Cameron Carter-Vickers before, we played Champions League football without Cameron Carter-Vickers.
“That is the easy thing to look at but that is not how we view things.
“Like I said we are not working as hard off the ball as we were prior to winning the title and when you don’t that’s what happens.
“You can’t dominate games of football playing like we did. We pride ourselves on being relentless and you can’t just be relentless when you have the ball.
“For us it is actually more important when we don’t have it and we haven’t been the last couple of weeks.”
Postecoglou added: “Yeah it is natural and for some of them it probably is the case, but you still have games of football to play.
“What do you do? If that is your attitude going into games you will struggle.
“The whole thing we do is not to be reactive to what is happening around the field or reactive to circumstances.
“We want to be consistent in what we do and that is the only way we can play our football.
“If we don’t then like I said it becomes a struggle for us.”
