CAMERON Carter-Vickers has insisted there is no need for Celtic to abandon their style of play in the wake of their disappointing 0-0 draw with Livingston.
Ange Postecoglou’s team squandered a chance to move to the top of the cinch Premiership table at Parkhead on Saturday when they failed to beat David Martindale’s side.
The Glasgow club dominated the league encounter, but they were unable to score and Greek striker Georgios Giakoumakis missed an injury-time penalty.
On-loan Spurs defender Carter-Vickers defended Postecoglou’s decision not to push his centre backs up the park to challenge for crosses into the opposition box.
And he insisted that Celtic, who had been on a four game winning run going into the Livingston match, can still challenge their city rivals Rangers for the Scottish title using their manager’s tactics.
“The way we play is the way we believe will bring us the most success and the players are all right behind that,” he said. “That’s what we want to do, that’s what we try to do and that’s what we’ll keep doing.
“It was a chance to go top of the league and that’s obviously where we want to be, but it’s only the end of October and leagues aren’t won at this time of the season. There’s plenty of time and I believe if we stick to our principles we’ll get there.
“I’m feeling good, I’m enjoying it here. It’s all about keeping on improving, keeping doing what the manager wants us to do.”
Livingston didn’t test Celtic keeper Joe Hart all afternoon and Carter-Vickers admitted it had been hard to break down opponents who defended in such large numbers.
However, the United States internationalist praised the West Lothian outfit for preventing their hosts from scoring and taking a point from the outing.
“It’s hugely frustrating,” he said. “It’s difficult to play against a team who sit behind the ball for 90 minutes. You have to break them down.
“Fair play to them. They came with a plan, they stuck to it all the way through and they were really well organised. You have you give them their props. It’s up to us to break them down and it’s disappointing that we weren’t able to do that.
“We had a lot of the ball, we kept trying and trying, we kept playing until the end, but we just couldn’t get the break. It’s difficult when the emphasis is all on you, when only one team is trying to build a tempo and the momentum.”
Carter-Vickers has absolved Giakoumakis, whose poorly-struck spot kick was easily denied by Max Stryjek, from any blame for the Livingston result as Celtic got their preparations under way for the Europa League match against Ferncvaros in Budapest on Thursday evening.
“Sometimes in a game like the one on Saturday you need something to go your way and it felt like it had when we got the decision right (referee Bobby Madden ruled that Ayo Obileye had lashed out at Kyogo Furuhashi and sent the centre half off) at the end,” he said.
“But everyone misses penalties, so there’s no blame there. They go in or they don’t and this time it didn’t.”
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