Title deeds

Postecoglou calls on Celtic to wrap up league after derby draw

ANGE Postecoglou has called on Celtic to wrap up the Scottish title in style after watching the champions elect survive a late Rangers fightback at Parkhead yesterday.

A first-half Jota strike put the cinch Premiership leaders in front and they dominated the match against their Ibrox rivals thereafter.

However, Fashion Sakala levelled for the visitors in the second half and Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s team were unfortunate not to take the lead in the closing stages.

Joe Hart denied Scott Arfield with a brilliant save and Sakala hit the right post with a shot after bursting through on goal.

Celtic, who have a vastly superior goal difference to their nearest challengers, are six points clear with three matches remaining against Hearts, Dundee United and Motherwell.

Postecoglou refused to accept the Glasgow giants’ lead is now unassailable – but he backed his men to close out the Scottish title with a flourish in the next fortnight.

“I don’t know about unassailable but we are in a strong position,” he said. “We have three games to go, two of them at home.

“We have been so strong at home all year, including today, we didn’t lose. From our perspective it gives us a great opportunity to take advantage of the position we are in. The thing with us, we don’t want to sort of just get there, we want to finish strong and we have three games to do that.

“It was a tense game which you would expect with so much on the line and the consequences of the result either way.

“We scored and had some great chances to go two or three up, but didn’t take them and to Rangers’ credit they fought their way back into the game and once they scored they got a bit of momentum.

“They had nothing to lose so they were going to throw men forward and put us under pressure but the boys still showed their resilience, Joe has made a couple of great saves and we got a result out of it.”