Defender says team don’t need style tweak

CAMERON Carter-Vickers has insisted there is no need for Celtic to abandon their style of play in the wake of their disappointing 0-0 draw with Livingston.

Ange Postecoglou’s team squandered a chance to move to the top of the cinch Premiership table at Parkhead on Saturday when they failed to beat David Martindale’s side.

The Glasgow club dominated the encounter, but they were unable to score and Greek striker Georgios Giakoumakis missed an injury-time penalty.

On-loan Spurs defender Carter-Vickers defended Postecoglou’s decision not to push his centre-backs up the park to challenge for crosses into the opposition box.

And he insisted that Celtic, who had been on a four game winning run going into the Livingston match, can still challenge Rangers for the Scottish title using their manager’s tactics.

“The way we play is the way we believe will bring us the most success and the players are all right behind that,” he said. “That’s what we want to do, that’s what we try to do and that’s what we’ll keep doing.

“It was a chance to go top of the league and that’s obviously where we want to be, but it’s only the end of October and leagues aren’t won at this time of the season. There’s plenty of time and I believe if we stick to our principles we’ll get there.

“I’m feeling good, I’m enjoying it here. It’s all about keeping on improving, keeping doing what the manager wants us to do.”

Livingston did not test Celtic keeper Joe Hart all afternoon and CarterVickers admitted it had been hard to break down opponents who defended in such large numbers.

“It’s hugely frustrating,” he said. “It’s difficult to play against a team who sit behind the ball for 90 minutes. You have to break them down. Fair play to them. They came with a plan, they stuck to it all the way through and they were really well organised. It’s up to us to break them down and it’s disappointing that we weren’t able to do that.”