Postecoglou points to volume of fixtures and his
ANGE POSTECOGLOU has attributed Celtic’s lengthy injury list to the fact the Parkhead club have played
“too many games” in the last four weeks – and his insistence his men keep playing an all-action style of football.
Postecoglou’s players lifted the first trophy of the season at Hampden on Sunday when they came from behind to beat their Premiership rivals Hibernian 2-1 in the Premier Sports Cup final.
But the hard-fought triumph came at a cost – midfielder
David Turnbull pulled up with a hamstring strain during the first-half and needed to be replaced by Nir Bitton. Turnbull joined Albian Ajeti, James Forrest, Georgios Giakoumakis and Jota on the sidelines and is now likely to miss the league game against St Mirren in Paisley tomorrow evening.
Postecoglou, who fielded Kyogo Furuhashi and Mikey Johnston against Hibs despite neither man being 100 per cent fit, believes that Celtic’s punishing schedule is to blame.
His charges have played no fewer than nine games in the four weeks that have passed since the last international break and have another four matches to negotiate before the two-week winter shutdown next month.
He also admitted his highintensity game plan had taken its toll as he started preparations for the St Mirren match.
“It’s not bad luck,” said Postecoglou. “We’re playing too many games. People can talk about it as much as they want, but because we don’t have the squad to rotate players at the moment we are paying the price. And we are playing a certain brand of football that puts pressure on players.
“Since the last break we are going to have I think 13 games in the space of maybe six weeks. No other club has that by the way. So that is going to have an attrition, particularly when we are talking about having a limited squad and limited options.
“David Turnbull hasn’t missed a game so I don’t think it takes too much investigation to understand that his body is fatigued. We are paying the price for that at the moment.
“It’s not that it’s a price I’m willing to pay, because I don’t want players to get injured, but I didn’t want to compromise our football and take the foot off the pedal because I knew there were going to be this many games. I just figured ‘well let’s just go for it’ and we hope to hang on until the break.
“My players aren’t holding back and it’s the only reason we are being successful at the moment. You can’t hold back.
It’s all-in or nothing and I’ve said that to them from day one whether it’s training or playing, you’ve got to be totally into this.”
Postecoglou added: “There were a least two or three out
there on Sunday (feeling it). Mikey is nowhere near 100 per cent fit, but I thought he was outstanding, real maturity from him to put his injury to one side and contribute to the team. There are a lot of those examples.
“David has been unbelievable for us. Not just the quality of his play, but the fact he is playing every game. I’m putting him out there every time because we need him and we don’t have a lot of options there.
“I was gutted for him on Sunday because he deserved to be out there at the end.
But hopefully it is nothing too significant and we will get him back pretty quickly.”
The winter break was reintroduced to the Premiership calendar this season – but it results in a large number of matches being crammed into December and Postecoglou feels he does not have the strength in depth in his squad at the moment to deal with it.
“Look, I haven’t lived the real Scottish winter yet, so maybe ask me what I think of the break in a couple of weeks time,” he said. “I don’t have all those answers.
“I think it’s too much football, but at the same time I also understand that we are in Europe, we are in a cup final and we have brought it upon ourselves in many respects.
“If we had a more rounded squad, if this team was a year further down the track or two years down the track and were more settled, then I think we could navigate ourselves to be better off than we are now at the moment.”
Postecoglou replaced Kyogo Furuhashi, who scored both of Celtic’s goals in the 2-1 win over Hibs, with Owen Moffat on Sunday even though the 19-year-old had only made his first team debut four days earlier against Ross County.
He is prepared to give the best youngsters coming through the academy their chance if they impress.
“That’s football life,” he said. “Life is about opportunity. Not just being in the right place at the right time, but also being ready for it.
“Moff probably wasn’t in the calculations two weeks ago, but we just had so many injuries. We brought him into training and he has looked bright. We brought him on the other night and he looked good.
“It was good to have him to be able to throw on at the end there, because I knew Mikey and Kyogo wouldn’t last the distance.
“That, to me, is a lesson for every player out there.
You have to be ready for that opportunity. No one is going to write down the date it’s going to come, that’s not how a career goes.”