Matt O'Riley knows Scottish Cup final places are on the line as Celtic prepare to round off their Premiership campaign.
Ange Postecoglou’s champions have two remaining fixtures to deal with before a June 3 date with Inverness Caledonian Thistle at Hampden. The first of those is a trip to face Hibs at Easter Road this evening, a chance for players to show the manager they are ready for the national stadium after a pair of disappointing results against Rangers and St Mirren.
With a concluding league game to follow at home to Aberdeen on Saturday, Postecoglou wants to use these fixtures to fine-tune his squad for a potentially treble-winning occasion. And midfielder O’Riley expects everyone in the dressing room will be striving to catch his eye.
“Yeah, definitely,” the 22-year-old said of the competition for places. “It has been that way the whole season, to be completely honest. I don’t think it’s because there’s a cup final coming up that people are suddenly changing the way they train and play.
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“It has been pretty consistent throughout the year. We know that whoever does step on the pitch is good enough to do a job for us, and we have enough firepower coming off the bench to improve the level as well.
“There will definitely be guys feeling they can stake a claim. I think everyone should have that mindset, if they don’t they are probably lacking some sort of competitive edge and I don’t think we have a team like that. Everybody in there wants to play.”
After clinching the Premiership title at Tynecastle, Postecoglou felt the physical and mental toll of a season spent competing on four fronts, including Europe, could be underestimated from the outside. Given there was, essentially, nothing on the line their last two league outings, it could be said that toll has caught up with Celtic, to an extent. But O’Riley insists they cannot use that as an excuse, regardless of context.
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“I don’t think we’re in a place where we are physically struggling, to be honest,” he said. “Mentally, it’s a long season, but we all know we’ve still got a job to do. There are still a couple of weeks to go in the season, so I don’t think we really have any excuses, especially because we are playing for a football club like this where the demands are so high.
“We are not thinking too much about how we are league winners, right now. Of course, we are league winners, but it’s not really our focus. We have a couple of games to look forward to and enjoy, but we have to bear in mind we still have a job to do.
“When you’re used to performing at a high level and winning pretty much every game, it’s natural when you don’t win there’s going to be questions asked. We know how it works, especially here at Celtic given the club we are. It’s not something we are surprised about and not something we’re unprepared for – we’re all good.”
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