Boss happy to put shock result to rest

ANGE POSTECOGLOU was delighted to gain revenge on St Mirren as Celtic secured an important three points in the Scottish Premiership title race.

Kyogo Furuhashi grabbed a double while Liel Abada and David Turnbull also scored in a dominant victory over St Mirren at Parkhead.

It was a revenge mission for Celtic who suffered their only domestic defeat of the season to Saints, and Postecoglou told of his delight after putting the shock result to rest.

He said: “Yeah, it was good. Good all- round effort, really solid, started the game well at a good tempo and scored some really nice goals.

“Credit to the lads I thought it was a really strong, disciplined performance.

“I think Kyogo’s been on fire for quite a while, but it’s just his movement, and the quality of his finishing is always there. Yeah, I was really, really pleased with the quality of our goals tonight. Two trademark Kyogo goals, a set- piece and then even Dave [ Turnbull’s] great strike so, yeah, really good goals.

“It’s stuff we work on consistently and I don’t think it’s a secret to anyone but, you know, it’s pretty hard to stop when we’re moving the ball that quickly and our movements are sharp.

“I thought some of our football tonight in not easy conditions was good. And Saturday took a fair bit out of the boys and I thought the energy of the new guys brought in and the intensity of the rest was good.”

Postecoglou also handed a debut to Yuki Kobayashi who impressed.

“I mean like I said before the game, he’s only a young guy, still getting to grips with football here and life here. But I thought he handled himself well. They’re a physical team, they’re pretty direct and he had to deal with a few things. I think he showed his qualities on the ball and he’ll get better from that.”

Looking ahead to Morton in the Scottish Cup on Saturday, Postecoglou revealed that he could make a number of changes.

He added: “Yeah, we’ll look at how everyone pulls up from it. Obviously, it’s a short turnaround with a Saturday game and it’s a lunchtime game as well so we’ll look at it to see who’s looking good at training, who’s feeling good.

“Certainly we’ve got some players we can definitely bring in. All the guys who came on tonight added some energy and I’m sure they’ll do that on the weekend too.”