Ange Postecoglou saw his team rack up their ninth straight win to stay nine points clear of Rangers - then insisted it won’t make a blind bit of difference to next week’s Viaplay Cup final clash with their Glasgow rivals.
The Celtic boss was delighted with yesterday’s 4-0 win over Aberdeen, which saw the Hoops take their goal tally for the season to an incredible 106 but Postecoglou is adamant that their sensational form will count for nothing at Hampden. He said: “Cup football is cup football. In any round you go in with the possibility that irrespective of form any team can win it.
“Even more so in a final. We played Hibs last year and it was a pretty tight game. So from our perspective we are not going into it thinking anything other than we’ve got to be the best we can be to get the job done. That’s what we do every week.”
Celtic were given a boost by the availability of Kyogo Furuhashi, who got 20 minutes under his belt after fearing a shoulder injury could have ruled him out of the cup final - but it was his countryman Reo Hatate who stole the show against Aberdeen with a double to add to Callum McGregor’s goal in the second minute and Liel Abada’s in the closing stages.
Postecoglou added: “Kyogo is fine, he is raring to go and looking forward to next week now. He would have been fine if he hadn’t got on but John Kennedy kept telling me ‘look, he is getting really angry, you better put him on’.
“So I didn’t have much choice. I thought he was going to sneak on at one point. I just thought before the game it was a good chance to get Oh some minutes. Kyogo has been outstanding in recent times and it was going to be hard for us to find a game for Oh with the fact we are only playing a game a week at the moment.
“I didn’t want to go too long without giving Oh a start and I thought today was a good opportunity to do that.”
And he heaped praise on Hatate’s level of consistency, adding: “Reo wants to be the best footballer he can be. He wants to improve and he is not going to settle for where he is at.
“Every day he comes in wanting to be a little bit better and he pushes himself to the absolute limits and he consistently asks us to give him the feedback he needs to be the best he can. He is reaping those rewards and I have no doubt there is more to come from him because that’s his mindset. He wants to be a top footballer and he is not going to settle.”
Nor is Postecoglou. He is delighted with his team having hit 106 goals so far this term but he is adamant there will be no easing up. “It’s credit to the guys,” he said. “You can easily rest on your laurels or bask in your success or form at the moment but there’s none of that. They keep pushing on and wanting to score more goals.
“It’s the kind of team we want to be. Even the last couple of games the result has been well and truly done but we are scoring goals in extra-time of games.
“People usually focus on that when it gives us a result but it’s just as important in games like these because it just shows you the kind of football team we want to be. It’s what our fans want to see, they want to see a winning team but also a team that’s exciting and scores goals. This team does that and we want to continue to be that type of team that is successful but also hopefully excites our fans.”
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