ANGE Postecoglou believes Celtic’s defeat to Bayer Leverkusen and Europa League exit have underlined that he needs to strengthen his squad - and expressed hope he can bring new players in during the January transfer window.

The Parkhead club conceded two goals in the last eight minutes of their Group G match against the Bundesliga giants in the BayArena on Thursday night to slump to a painful 3-2 defeat.

Postecoglou’s men, who had fought back after falling behind early and taken a 2-1 lead thanks to goals from Josip Juranovic and Jota, will drop into the knockout rounds of the Conference League after Christmas.

The Greek-Australian coach, who made four substitutions during the last 20 minutes as his players tired, felt the Glasgow outfit lost control of the game late on.

He admitted that reinforcements are required if Celtic are to compete with the best teams on the continent in future.  

“There is no doubt (Celtic need greater depth and quality),” he said. “We are still just four or five months into building a team and it was never going to happen in one transfer window. 

“We know that we need more depth and players in certain areas that I think can help us to bridge the gap. You look at the Leverkusen side and they have quality all the way through. 

“What we want to do is be able to compete at that level and we need to continue to look to improve our squad and add depth so that we can compete in lots of competitions.” 

Asked if it was unrealistic to expect Celtic to do significant business in the January window, Postecoglou replied: “Maybe, maybe not, let’s just see.” 

The former Australia and Yokohama F Marinos manager dismissed suggestions that Scottish clubs are no longer able to beat rivals from major football nations like Leverkusen and stressed his objective is to make Celtic a force in Europe.

“I don’t want to look at it like that,” he said. “I just want to compete at the highest possible level and develop a team that can play against the best on the continent. That’s my ambition and whether that’s too lofty or too unrealistic for other I don’t know. 

“But I believe we can get there over time – particularly if we take the approach we did in Germany. Credit to the players, we played a good team and refused to yield. We showed enormous spirit and enormous courage to score our goals. 

“Not many teams go there and score two goals away from home and in the end we realise there is still a gap there. But my goal anyway is to build a team that bridges that gap.”