RANGERS, so the accepted wisdom goes, need to beat Celtic tomorrow to have a realistic chance of retaining the Premiership title. A draw, given their lead over their rivals, would suit Celtic just fine.
Ange Postecoglou, it may not surprise Celtic supporters to hear, isn’t having a bit of it.
The Celtic manager will be sending his team out at Ibrox to dominate the game and to win it. That may not be how the match turns out, but he argues that he simply doesn’t know any other way to approach it.
If the spoils are shared, then Celtic would clearly be in a position of strength, enjoying a three point lead and a superior goal difference with only six games then still to play. But when that scenario is put to Postecoglou, there is only one thought in his head: what if Celtic win?
"If someone said to me there's a system out there that would guarantee you 150 percent that you would get a draw, I wouldn't take it,” Postecoglou said. “I reckon others would, but if I took it I'd be thinking: 'maybe we could have won'.
"I just don't believe in that approach. We always have to fall back on why we are in the position we are at the moment. The reason for that is that we believe in something beyond just trying to win a game of football. And that is playing our way.
"We have to win it too. There are still seven games to go; games of real consequence. We are getting to a point in the season when the league is so tight and if we start thinking we've got an edge then we could stumble.
"It's a game they want to win but we want to win as well because if we do, it puts us in a strong position.
"It doesn't change our approach. From our perspective, we are going there and we will try and put on our performance and play our football. We have done that over the last few months and we've ended up with a good chance of being successful.
"There are going to be emotions in the game. But we have a clear understanding of who we are and the football team we want to be. That's what we've got to present on Sunday.
"When you get too emotional and you don't stay calm, you lose focus on what's important to us. If you let this game rule your emotions too much, you kind of lose that focus.
"I'll be relaying the message to the boys that we are in this position for a reason. It hasn’t been because of individuals. It hasn't been because of us doing extraordinary things.
“It's because everyone has believed in something and in our core values and that's what we keep believing in every week."
Amid the positive injury news regarding Kyogo yesterday, Postecoglou also revealed he will be without one of his other attacking options.
"The only one that’s definitely ruled out is James Forrest who still had a bit of a niggle, so Sunday comes maybe too quickly for him,” he said.
“But everyone else is available.”
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