Sunday Mail (UK)

Ange: Final is a real one-off

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win over Aberdeen yesterday, which saw the Hoops take their goal tally for the season to an incredible 106.

But Postecoglo­u is adamant that their sensationa­l form will count for nothing at Hampden.

He said: “Cup football is cup football.

“In any round you go in with the possibilit­y that, irrespecti­ve of form, any team can win it. Even more so in a final. We played Hibs last year and it was pretty tight.

“So we are not going into it thinking anything other than we’ve got to be the best we can be to get the job done. That’s what we do every week.”

Celtic were given a boost by the availabili­ty of Kyogo Furuhashi, who got a 20-minute run after fearing a shoulder injury could have ruled him out of the final.

But it was fellow Japanese Reo Hatate who stole the show against Dons with a double in between Callum McGregor’s early goal and Liel Abada’s late strike.

Postecoglo­u added: “Kyogo’s fine, he’s raring to go and looking forward to next week.

“He would have been fine if he hadn’t got on but John Kennedy kept telling me ‘Look, he is getting really angry, you better put him on.’

“So I didn’t have much choice – I thought he was going to sneak on at one point!

“I just thought before the game it was a good chance to get Oh some minutes. It was going to be hard for us to find a game for Oh with the fact we are only playing one a week at the moment.

“I didn’t want to go too long without giving Oh a start and I thought today was a good opportunit­y to do that.”

The Australian heaped praise on Hatate’s level of consistenc­y, adding: “Reo wants to be the best footballer he can be. He wants to improve and he is not going to settle for where he is at.

“Every day he comes in wanting to be a little bit better and he pushes himself to the absolute limits and consistent­ly asks us to give him the feedback he needs to be the best he can.

“I have no doubt there is more to come from him because that’s his mindset. He wants to be a top footballer and he is not going to settle.”

Nor is Postecoglo­u. He is delighted with his team having hit 106 goals so far this term but he is adamant there will be no easing up.

He said: “It’s credit to the guys. You can easily rest on your laurels or bask in your success but there’s none of that.

“They keep pushing on and wanting to score more goals.

“It’s the kind of team we want to be.

“Even the last couple of games the result has been well and truly done but we are scoring goals in extra-time of games.

“People usually focus on that when it gives us a result but it’s just as important in games like these because it just shows you the kind of football team we want to be.

“Our fans want to see a winning team but also a team that’s exciting and scores goals.

“This team does that and we want to continue to be that type of team that is successful but also hopefully excites our fans.”

 ?? ?? READY TO KYOGO
Furuhashi proved his fitness
READY TO KYOGO Furuhashi proved his fitness

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