CELTIC manager Ange Postecoglou has revealed he told his players to ease off tackles towards the end of his side's 2-1 win over Alloa in the Scottish Cup as he didn't want any more players to pick up injuries.
Three players - goal scorer Liel Abada, captain Callum McGregor and new addition Yosuke Ideguchi - had to come off at the Indodrill after being on the receiving end of heavy challenges.
The tackle on Ideguchi from Mouhamed 'Sena' Niang, the Partick Thistle midfielder on loan at Alloa, was rewarded with a yellow card at the time but the 22-year-old could face a retrospective ban for the incident.
Supporters and pundits alike have loudly criticised Sena for the full-blooded challenge and Postecoglou has admitted that he told his players to avoid tackling in the game's closing stages to avoid any further injuries.
Speaking at a media conference on Tuesday, the Celtic manager explained: "The last thing I want is players taking matters into their own hands. The referee is to provide that protection from both sets of players – both from deliberate action but also from reckless action.
"There needs to be some sort of control out there so that players are confident that things aren’t going to get out of control.
🗣️ 'I told some of the lads towards the end to just not bother going into tackles and to just look after themselves...'
— BBC Sport Scotland (@BBCSportScot) January 25, 2022
Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou says his side were not getting proper protection from the referee and feared further injuries against Alloa Athletic ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/bddEfFEbBN
"Wherever I’ve been, wherever I’ve managed, every country I’ve managed at major tournaments, we sit down at the beginning of the year and the referee will show us things they’ll be looking for.
"Since I started managing 25 years ago, there have always been little tweaks to the rules but the one consistent thing is they always show us a vision of tackles they deem to be reckless, dangerous and they will always be punished because it’s a big part of protection of the player.
"This year was no different. If you show footage of that tackle [Sena on Ideguchi], that’s exactly the vision we get shown and we know that’s going to get handled by the referee.
"To be honest, I told some of the lads towards the end of the game not to go into tackles and look after themselves because I didn’t want any injuries. I didn’t feel there was control in that environment.
"This is not me looking at a referee’s performance in terms of the outcome or the result. I’ve been consistent in saying we’ll cop whatever we take in terms of that stuff. This is protection of the players, protection of the environment.
"That’s against premeditated stuff or even reckless [challenges]. Sometimes players are just reckless but that doesn’t mean that that’s excusable.
"We had a player who got a serious injury, there are a couple of others that are lucky to escape from that, and I was disappointed with the way the night panned out."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel