Ange Postecoglou reiterated is his Celtic transfer frustrations as he admitted maye he hasn’t been clear enough about the need for new players.
The Hoops crashed out of the Champions League in Denmark last night after a 3-2 aggregate defeat to FC Midtjylland after extra-time.
The Hoops started with young centre back pairing Stephen Welsh and Dane Murray, highlighting Postecoglou ’s need for reinforcements.
New signings Carl Starfelt and Kyogo Furuhashi were still unavailable due to quarantine.
And the Celtic boss repeated his message about the need for new faces immediately.
“Maybe I wasn’t clear enough, I don’t know,” he said. “I think I’ve been pretty consistent in saying we need more players in.
“We talk endlessly about the challenges we are facing. For our supporters they just want to see us bring reinforcements in that we need.
“I’ve just got to keep reinforcing my views on it as strongly as I possibly can.”
Rather than blame the board or new chief executive Dominic McKay, Postecoglou insisted it was down to him not being forceful enough in his pleas for more bodies.
He said: “I still think it’s my responsibility. I’m the person who has been put in charge.
“We haven’t got players in. Obviously I haven’t done a good enough job convincing people we need to bring people in.
“I’m not going to shy away from it. I don’t say that because I’m some kind of martyr.
“I just think that’s my responsibility. That’s why I was brought in.
“I’ve tried to be as forceful as I can about what we need to bring in. The challenges we’ve had are well chronicled, but irrespective of the result, we had a really young squad out there with young players on the bench, that’s not the situation we need to be in.”
Celtic have again been linked with a move for Tottenham goalkeeper Joe Hart, but Postecoglou would rather be talking about players he’s signed rather than those he might sign.
He added: “Again we have been linked with so many people and that’s a frustrating bit with me. I would rather be talking about people we brought in rather than people we have been linked with.
“As for Scott, he’s been training well and I just felt that, after the weekend game, that with such a young back four they needed a strong voice behind them.
“Scott provides that, he is very vocal and he doesn’t mind leading from back there. Barky is a different kind of personality, he is a bit more quiet and reserved.
‘I just felt we needed that tonight, knowing that playing away from home there are going to be times when they are going to be a little bit under pressure and need that encouragement.
“To be fair I think they held out well. We were not under pressure that much, particularly during the 90 minutes.”
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