Celtic are on the brink of an eighth treble after a hard-fought Scottish Cup semi-final victory against Rangers. Manager Ange Postecoglou, however, insists that his side “still have a bit to do” in order to achieve this feat. Since his arrival in Glasgow, Postecoglou has been stressing the importance of striving for continual improvement. With the title defence a formality and the League Cup already in the Celtic Park trophy room, Postecoglou has matched the achievements of his remarkable debut campaign and can make it a clean sweep of honours with a victory over Inverness Caledonian Thistle when his side return to Hampden on 3 June.
Postecoglou is aware that his side must do the business in order to make history, stating that “what we’ve done is we’ve given ourselves the opportunity to do something special, now we have got to go out there and do it.” Despite losing only one domestic game all season, Postecoglou still believes that his side are not yet a top team, saying that “we’ve still a bit to do, but you have to embrace every aspect of the game to be one of those sides and we’re doing that.”
Former Celtic striker Chris Sutton described Cameron Carter Vickers as “a warrior” and Postecoglou said his centre-half “hasn’t put a foot wrong since he got here”. The USA international has been delaying a knee operation to play, but will take no further part this season. Postecoglou praised Carter-Vickers and Carl Starfelt for their performance together, saying that “they are an outstanding pair, they really work hard together.” Alistair Johnston also made a number of important interventions and Celtic lost none of their aggression in defence when Anthony Ralston replaced the injured Canadian.
Despite a few second-half scares for Celtic, with James Tavernier hitting the post with a shot and Fashion Sakala slamming the rebound into the side-netting, Celtic held firm to make it five games unbeaten against their Glasgow rivals this season, with four wins and a draw. Postecoglou was proud of his side’s performance, saying that “Rangers put in everything to try and stop us. It’s not just about the football and individuals, but collectively, they take hold of games and have that resilience – that’s the growth of this side.”