Postecoglou plays down Clarke rift
ANGE POSTECOGLOU says he has no issue with Steve Clarke after the Scotland manager expressed his disappointment at Celtic refusing to release players for international duty, adding that Clarke would probably do the same thing in his position.
The Celtic manager made the decision to take all of his players who aren’t going to the World Cup to Australia for the Sydney Super Cup, instead of allowing the Scottish internationals among them to travel to Turkey for Scotland’s friendly next week.
But Postecoglou played down any notion of a rift between himself and the national team head coach.
“It’s quite simple, Steve has every right to be disappointed, he is national team manager and I’ve been there,” Postecoglou said.
“As a club manager we are sometimes disappointed with players who go out on national team duty and they get injured or they don’t play, but we all get over our disappointment quickly. I’ve got no issue with Steven I wish him all the best. The players that we are taking are important for us and important for our supporters, that’s why we have taken the decision. It’s fair enough. I have no issues with Steve.
“If he was the club manager, he probably wouldn’t release the players.”
Meanwhile, Postecoglou ( right) saluted his players for grinding out a hard- fought 2- 1 win at Motherwell last night, their eighth straight win since losing to St Mirren. “It was a bit of a grind tonight,” he said. “We never really got into the rhythm we wanted. Credit to Motherwell for really hard. We didn’t start well and complicated things. W3 made the game difficult for ourselves. But it’s not easy away from home so another win is good.
“They worked hard and disrupted us. When we’re playing well we move the ball quickly and find simple solutions. We tried to be too cute, didn’t play the obvious pass. We didn’t control the game the way we wanted to.
“We could play better but a big part of this team is their character when we’re not at our best. Winning away from home in the Premiership is never easy.”