‘Angeball’ will need a tweak for Bernabeu

IT got lost amid the excitement of a new campaign on the horizon, but, talking after a pre-season friendly with Blackburn Rovers in mid-July, it was hard not to feel Matt O’Riley had given the game away a little with regard to Celtic’s plans for the Champions League.

‘We have put plans together in training about how we are going to set up,’ said the midfielder. ‘When we play against better opposition, we are going to have to be at our best defensively or you’ll get picked off.’

Much of the chat before and after the group-stage draw that paired Celtic with Real Madrid has been about how ‘Angeball’ will translate to an elite arena, how the Parkhead manager’s commitment to going for the jugular can possibly end in anything but Brendan Rodgers-style humiliations.

Postecoglou has clearly been working on this for months, though. It is unthinkable they will go into the Bernabeu with the same approach they’d use for McDiarmid Park.

Well, at least, you’d think it’s unthinkable. Big Ange has barely put a foot wrong since arriving at Celtic. A handful of tankings in Europe, though, would leave his bubble in serious danger of being burst.

It’s hard to think he will leave himself open to that outcome. No matter how bullish he comes across.