Ange Postecoglou says Celtic can’t stand still and as he revealed a deal for Sead Haksabanovic is almost done.
The Parkhead boss said he is determined to keep pressing for improvements after his team maintained their 100 per cent start to the Premiership with a win over Hearts. Kyogo Furuhashi and Giorgos Giakoumakis struck as the champions moved two points clear at the top of the table.
Postecoglou’s squad looks strong for domestic and European action, but he won’t rest on laurels and new arrivals are set to be added. Celtic are pushing to sign Macedonian star Haksabanovic and Postecoglou was asked on Sky Sports if a deal was close. He smiled: "Yeah I think that's a fair assessment - it's getting close." Postecoglou reckons his work at Parkhead is still in its early stages. He said: “Yeah, we can’t stand still. We’re still building. Every now and then I’ll glance at the diary and, if you go back 12 months, you’re going to have a very different picture of what our football club looked like.
“We’ve made a hell of a lot of progress, but we’re still at the beginning. I’m still building a team, building a game style, building an environment. There’s still work to be done.
“Just because you have had success or it looks like things are going well, that’s not the time to stand still. I still know there’s a lot of work to be done. My ambitions for this football club are very strong in terms of making sure we are the best we can be.
“So, we’ll continue to strengthen with the guys we’ve got, but if opportunities come along to bring people in who I think will help us on that journey, then I’ll bring them in.
“I’ve had full support from day one. We wouldn’t have been able to do the work we’ve done in the last 12 months. It’s very easy to forget, but 12 months in the world of football is not a hell of a long time to do what we’ve done I think.
“We’ve pretty much restructured a whole playing list, the way we play our football. That hasn’t been just me, the whole club has embraced that we needed to do it and I’ve had support all along. They continue to support me, and as a manager, that’s what you need. I’m going to take responsibility for it, so I think that’s important for what you want to achieve.”
Postecoglou was pleased with the win over Robbie Neilson’s outfit and said: “It wasn’t as free-flowing as I’d like a game of football to be. It was stop-start and not a lot of consistent tempo in the game. Some of it was our doing but it was just one of those games where it didn’t feel like we could open up and play our football.
"The players maintained their discipline, didn’t get frustrated and in the end got a good win. We just had to grind our way through it and I thought we did that.”
Hearts did not manage a shot on target, but Postecoglou continued: “I’m always respectful of the opposition and the way they go about things. But anyone who has followed my career from day one will know that irrespective of the opposition, my approach has always been if you can make the opposition uncomfortable then you have a chance. When I’ve been in those situations and I have been plenty of times, my feeling is that if you just let the opposition have the ball and sort of dictate the game, then it’s kind of what they do every week.”
Celtic are in great shape ahead of the upcoming glut of games and Postecoglou added: “We tried to target it that way. We probably wouldn’t work the players as hard in training under normal circumstances, but we just felt this was a good time to do that, without being ridiculous.
“This is the last week before the games start, so we will taper off this week. They’ve all got a really good fitness base and now it’s about winding it back a bit now that all the games are starting. It’s been a solid start, but we just have to keep at it and make sure we keep improving.”
