ALL GUNS BLAZING
Hat-trick hero Turnbull insists Celtic will attack Alkmaar and Rangers
DAVID TURNBULL last night celebrated the first hat-trick of his career and insisted new-look Celtic are ready to set the season on fire by beating AZ Alkmaar in Europe and winning away to Rangers.
Turnbull was the star man as Ange Postecoglou’s side hammered 10-man St Mirren 6-0 at Parkhead — with a Liel Abada brace and an Odsonne Edouard strike completing the scoring — and vowed that the
policy of all-out attack will continue in Thursday’s Europa League play-off second leg and the first Old Firm derby of the campaign at Ibrox on Sunday.
‘We feel we’re ready to go and win both games,’ he said. ‘It’s a huge week — Thursday, Sunday, against two good teams.
‘But the way we’re playing at the moment, we fancy ourselves against anyone.
‘The manager won’t change the way we’re playing for these two games. This is the way we want to play.
‘He’s drilled that into us, so we’ll go and play the way we have been looking to get a result.
‘I just think everybody’s working as hard as we can until the final whistle.
‘You saw today we were relentless until the 90th minute and everything’s going well at the moment.’
‘Relentless’ was the word Rangers wore on their T-shirts and used in their hashtags as they won the title last season. It is already clear that Postecoglou and his players are eager to take ownership of that ahead of winning back the crown.
‘We set off at a good tempo and put them under pressure. The sending off enabled us to control the game very well,’ said Postecoglou of Alan Power’s 19th-minute red card for a tackle on Turnbull. ‘Right to the end, we were pushing. We want to be relentless in our pursuit of playing our football. Today was a good test of that.
‘You may say that I’m a little bit arrogant to say that we are going to improve after we won 6-0, but we are still at the beginnings of what we are trying to build.
‘I don’t know if it is coming together. It makes it sound like I am sitting on a sofa and everything is being presented to me. It is a lot of hard work and we still have work to do.
‘We haven’t finished in that area. I am still hopeful of bringing in at least a couple to the squad because we are going to need them.’
Assistant boss Lee Sharp was in the technical area for Saints due to boss Jim Goodwin being stuck at home following a positive Covid test and felt aggrieved by some of the decisions.
‘It’s a difficult place to come with 11 men on the park,’ he said. ‘Going down to 10 so early on obviously made it a lot tougher.
‘Alan should possibly stay on his feet, but I’ve seen tackles like that given as yellow cards. A few moments later, (Ryan) Christie had one on (Ethan) Erhahon that was very similar on the far side.
‘He wasn’t even booked, so you’re just looking for it to be evened up. Big decisions went against us and we got a goal chalked off that was perfectly fine, onside.’
Asked about lines of communication with Goodwin, Sharp replied: ‘He was watching at home and probably throwing things at the telly.’