Ange Postecoglou plays down offside drama after Celtic bag Hearts victory | OneFootball

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Blaise Bourgeois·27 January 2022

Ange Postecoglou plays down offside drama after Celtic bag Hearts victory

Article image:Ange Postecoglou plays down offside drama after Celtic bag Hearts victory

Celtic kept pace with Rangers on Wednesday night, claiming a 2-1 away victory at Hearts thanks to goals from Reo Hatate and Giorgios Giakouamakis.

Following the game, Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou was not only thrilled with the result but to the moon over the performances of Hatate and Matt O’Riley, who made his debut just days after coming in from MK Dons.


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“A cracking game, we’re really pleased,” he told Sky Sports after the match.

“Coming here, it’s not an easy place to come but we played well, got our goals, had to defend a bit at the end. Really proud of them.

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“You have to always have to (defend) when you come away from home, especially against a team that’s in good form, we could have finished the game off earlier, we had some good chances.

“Once they got their goal the crowd got behind them but I still think we handled it really well.

“Super-pleasing, you need to keep it context, Matty O’Riley came in a few days ago, I thought he was outstanding, Reo’s had 70 minutes of football in the last month.

“It’s brilliant, we had a challenge tonight, that’s for sure, everybody knows the players we have missing, significant absences, guys out there had to step up and they did.”

There were a few controversial moments in the match, including Giakouamakis’ goal being allowed to stand despite huge calls for offside.

Article image:Ange Postecoglou plays down offside drama after Celtic bag Hearts victory

Ange did not want to speculate on what happened and played down any such notion that they did not deserve the three points.

“Mate, I don’t know, they love talking about decisions here, don’t they?

“I like analysing the game of football, ‘there’s is offside, our’s is offside, mate, it doesn’t matter’.

“All I see is we played really well tonight, created a lot of opportunities, Craig Gordon had a few saves to make, we just needed to finish it off earlier.”

Celtic will only have a few days to prepare for their next encounter as they will host Dundee United this Saturday.