ANGE Postecoglou has singled out the quality in his Celtic side which be believes has been overlooked this season in the wake of an important 2-1 win over Hearts at Tynecastle last night – their resilience.

Postecoglou has been praised for the flair and attacking intent his team has shown during the 2021/22 campaign and supporters have dubbed the tactics used by the Greek-Australian coach “Angeball”.

But the former Yokohama F Marinos manager, whose team triumphed in Edinburgh thanks to first-half goals from Reo Hatate and Giorgios Giakoumakis, thinks his charges have character too.

The Parkhead club were missing Kyogo Furuhashi, Yosuke Ideguchi, Daizen Maeda, Callum McGregor, Tom Rogic and David Turnbull in the capital because of injury and international commitments.

But they still withstood a late onslaught by their opponents and ground out a win that keeps them within four points of their city rivals Rangers at the top of the cinch Premiership table a week ahead of the second Old Firm game of the season.

“It’s probably the one thing that is probably a little bit underestimated in this team,” he said. “They are just a really resilient group of players.

“There were plenty of reasons for them to have excuses, but I thought with the changes we had to make our football was still great.

“We had to defend. When the crowd gets behind them here you feel like you are probably under more pressure than you actually are because Joe (Celtic keeper Hart) didn’t have that many saves to make in comparison to Craig (Hearts goalie Gordon).

“But you feel that energy in the stadium that the crowd gives them and you feel under pressure. But I thought the guys held out really well.

“How many attempts did they have on our goal and how many times did Joe have to come into play? For the most part I thought we kept them away.”

Postecoglou added: “We have to be resilient. If you chart the course of this team from the first time we were at Tynecastle – which people keep mentioning – the amount of challenges we’ve had means we haven’t really had a smooth run to be honest. 

“But I don’t mind because it builds resilience and reveals character. It doesn’t matter what team we throw out there the guys show that they are ready for it and enjoying and embracing the kind of team we want to be. 

“They are not making excuses or allowances for anything and I think that’s a credit to the whole group.

“We had some challenges, we knew that. In terms of the overall performance I thought on a difficult night with a difficult challenge I thought we handled it well.”