Ange Postecoglou's Celtic Q+A in full: What makes up an Ange transfer and outlining football dreams

How was the other night as an experience for you as you seemed to enjoy it with the fans afterwards and you do have a special bond with the Celtic supporters?

The whole night was pretty special from the moment we walked out. You could just feel the energy in the stadium and how our supporters were getting behind the team. The performance of the boys was worthy of that support. I took my time acknowledging the after the game as I felt it was important we did that. I realised, in the end, I took too long as I was the only one out there and I had to run off pretty quickly as I was a bit embarrassed by it. We were walking around and the supporters were still there and none of them had left early. I wanted to take in the experience myself as I realise it was a special night and you want to store it somewhere in your memory bank which can be recalled in your old retiring years.

Is it possible to maintain those levels that the players reached against Rangers for the remainder of the season?

Why not? You go through the whole season trying to continually create new benchmarks and new levels for yourself. That is the constant message and theme. We have never set out a clear goal in our mind as the kind of team we want to be. We leave that kind of hanging to see where it takes us. When you set down a marker against a good opponent it shows you that can play at that level.

That's what we should be thinking moving forward and also improving on it.

Can I ask about the squad after the Rangers game - how have they all come through it?

They are all fine. There are no issues. We had a couple of little niggly ones with some of the boys who were starting but they were okay. We'll get Niro (Bitton) back from suspension and Tommy Rogic and Daizen (Maeda) are fully available to us now.

Will Tom get a break before being put straight back into the squad to face Motherwell?

We don't do breaks during the year he will get a break at the end of the season like everyone else. He's back and he's raring to play.

There is a real bond among the players, you are an important part of that, what do you do and why is it so successful and evident?

I always believe that environment and culture is driven by people and not me trying to enforce conditions on how the players should be. If you get the right people in that kind of drives itself. I am really big on everyone in this building being respectful of one another and being good people - there is nothing wrong with that. In life we all grow up with intentions of being the best people we can be and that is what we strive for and I expect that here. Within that context, people will make mistakes in that family and some will step out of line but if you have the right people then it gets addressed straight away. It is led by Callum (McGregor) who is our experienced leader and he has good people alongside him. The environment is driven by them. They come in every day and I am not in the dressing room. They hardly see me during the day apart from training and so forth and it is what they want it to be. You are quicker to get to success if there is a common bond between them.

A result and performance like Wednesday night brings a boost within the squad, is there a fine line between you encouraging that and as a manager having to taper that as well?

I haven't sensed the boost or a change in approach from anybody. Pretty quickly after the game - whilst we were delighted with the way it went - players got into recovery mode and we were getting ready for the next challenge. Again that comes back to people. The end goal was never to be on top in February but on top when it counts. All Wednesday night did was push us closer to that goal but we are not there yet. There is nothing to suggest that mindsets or approaches should change. The boost we got was that we got three points, we played well and gave ourselves a chance in the next contest beyond that there has been nothing to suggest that we have to address anything.

A very different environment and opposition on Sunday, is your message to the players to approach it in the same way?

That's what we have been doing and that's what has got us into this space. We have not got here because of one performance or one set of conditions and we have had to battle on our way since the start of the season. Sunday will be a tough game as Motherwell are a good side and they have ambitions to stay in the top half of the table they will test us out and that is what we have been doing from day one. I haven't come in and felt that I need to address some sort of shift in attitude around the place. What we did the other night is what we have been doing for quite a while now and overcoming whatever challenge is put before us.

Matt was talking about Callum being inspiring and playing through a significant injury is that what you want to see from your captain?

I don't think it is what I want to see. I don't want anybody hurt and trying to prove their character in that manner. It is a testament to him as a person that he had it in his mind that if everything checked out from a medical point of view that he wanted to be out there. He knew it was important and he was one of the few that had experienced that big game atmosphere particularly in a derby and without him there we would have lacked a little bit of that experience. He didn't prove anything to me or anyone else the other night because we already know what an outstanding person he was. It is a testament to him that he not only got out there but he actually played really well and drove us in big moments and that is inspiring to everybody.

On the theme of a level, how much do you look at the statistics that you're players are showing up?

When we analyse our performance and that's what we do we do not analyse the result. Everybody knows the result and you win, lose or draw. When you analyse performance you delve pretty deep into individuals and how they perform against other benchmarks from this season. Whether that be physical or tactical. There is a lot of data out there and we have some key ones that we look at. Whenever we hit a new sort of level, I don't see it as a peak, I see it as a stepping stone to going to another higher level. We feed this information back to the players because it shows them what they are capable of particularly if they have hit a new sort of mark. My view has always been to coach a team to peak at the end of the season. Traditionally that has always been how my teams have been set up. In terms of our playing model, my history in football was in Australia where to be a champion you had to win a grand final at the end of the season so you had to be playing your best football then. I have maintained that throughout my career because that for the most part things get decided. In an ideal world we would be playing our best football by the turn of the year but due to injuries and absences that have not been possible. We give our feedback to the players every week on a number of fronts in terms of their progress and potential to improve.

You can see the players improving but there is still more to go considering that first-half performance against Rangers?

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That is the whole point going into a game like that. If you put a limit on what you can achieve or how you can play then you potentially miss the opportunity to create new levels of performance. So we go into every game whether that's Wednesday night or Sunday with the main objective to be to play our best game of the season. Let's play better than we have played so far. You are not thinking about what you did last game and you don't want to repeat that you want to improve on it. It does not always work out that way and sometimes there is a dip in form and sometimes the opposition can stop you from playing at those levels but the intent is always to improve. Matt O'Riley is three/four games into his Celtic career as is Reo Hatate and Giorgos Giakoumakis. The rest have been here for five or six months of the beginning of a new cycle and new way of playing and there has to be an improvement. If we want to achieve and be the team we want to be we have to improve. If we want to be successful we have to bed better than we were the other night.

You said after beating Rangers that don't look at the table and you won't look at it now are the players as focused as you are?

It's not about not looking at the table...as I do. I don't let that guide me in the feedback I give to the players or guide my mood or guide my attitude about what is ahead. The goal was never just to get to the top spot. If you do that then what do you do next? What is the next level for the players? We haven't spoken about being on top of the league or having a certain amount of points. What we have spoken about every week is being the best team we can be and trying to improve and when the trophies are handed out we are in there.

Being in the first place is a sign of our progression and it is part of the narrative because if we weren't going well then we would not be in this position. It is not the endpoint. Nothing changes because that has happened.

READ MORE: Ange Postecoglou on Celtic environment and Rangers win taking them 'step closer to ultimate goal'

Looking ahead to Motherwell and they have not managed a win since the resumption after the break, Fir Park is a notoriously tough place to go, I assume that is what you expect?

Every game from now on will be a challenge for all teams. Everyone is fighting for something and particularly away from home in the Premiership. There are challenges every week and we've tried to after the first five or six games be as resilient as we can to overcome whatever challenge we've faced. The Dundee United game when we were at home and their form wasn't great either and everybody expected a comfortable afternoon but it wasn't. That is what you go into every week home or away you know it is going to be tough. That is the measure of every team. The measure of every boxer is not just the punches you throw, it is about the punches you take and how you react to that and we've been hit a fair few times but credit to the players as we haven't gone down as we have got ourselves back into the ring and started swinging again. It will be a tough one but we expect every game to be tough.

Matt O'Riley is integral to your team and your system, how do you feel he has settled in and what are your hopes for him this season?

He's settled in outstandingly well and whenever I bring a player in I have a fair bit of confidence in what we are bringing in will fit what we've already got here. It is a little bit more difficult at the start because you are still putting it all together. During the January window, I knew what we needed and the kind of player we needed in terms of the characteristics. When I looked at all the underlying stuff Matt was a standout candidate for us and the little bit of the unknown was how quickly was he going to adjust or settle in and if he was going to understand the environment he has gotten into. That bit is a credit to him as he has walked in and embraced the challenge and loved the challenge and it says a lot about him as a person that he is loving it. He loves the fact that this is a different level and there is more expectation and he is at a club with big ambitions. His performance against the Rangers was outstanding as he went into that game with an injury and to be fair to him I didn't think he would play but again he just got on with it and got out there and was outstanding.

Can you enlighten us on the recruitment process and how it has developed in a short time and how you can identify a talent like Matt?

It was a good transfer window for us and I said all along I kind of knew what we needed. Michael (Nicholson) and the board supported me in the vision I had for January and we were on it early. The key part for me was doing our business early. I did not want to bring players in on the last day of the window when they take a couple of weeks to get going and integrated. That's four or five games for us. Coming out of the winter break, I still knew we were short of players so to get the guys in early from Japan after identifying them in the summer, I knew we could get them in January if we worked really hard on it. Matt was a unique case where things fell into place and he was one that I was really keen to bring in the timing worked perfectly and we could move quickly and get the deal done in a couple of days as that was important to me. Any other deal that would have taken more than a couple of days I backed out of as it would not have served our purpose for what we need right now which is guys coming in and ready to play and contribute. We didn't want players to take three games to get going as we had to perfect again from the restart. Moving forward we will have a structure in place that will allow us to work through these windows and there will always be challenges that are not to say that at times on deadline day we will still be doing business but I just feel that we can work a bit more methodically in the transfer window to get our business right.

Many observers have been impressed by your work in the transfer market. A lot of the focus has been on the Japanese players but you have signed players from the Russian, Polish, Israeli, English and Irish leagues. What are the three key factors that make up an Ange Postecoglou signing?

It's a hard one for me to define and not because I feel I will be giving away secrets. I often tell the story and I may bore people but I will tell it anyway. I went to Clairefontaine which is France's academy of football where they produced some of their greatest players. I spent a week there in early 2000. They went through an identification process and I was really keen to understand what they saw in players and how they identified them. They had fifty or sixty 15 year-olds in the building and I was coming from Australia and I looked at them and I thought all of them were outstanding. I thought how do you pick ten out of this it is ridiculous as I would have taken all of them. I kept asking questions as I really wanted defined parameters of what they were looking for. An exact science. There were some things in there that they spoke about skill, physical ability and benchmarks but I still wasn't satisfied because they weren't giving me what I wanted and finally there was a coach who had been there for the last 25 years and he was getting sick of me asking questions and he wanted me to shut up. He leaned over and in his dismissive French way and he said in French and luckily I had an interpreter and he said: "Look, I just know". What he was trying to say to me was that he had been doing the job for 25 years and he had seen enough of young talent coming through to know instinctively if they fit. There is a little bit of that in me and in the last 25 years, I have had a clear idea of how I want my football teams and players to play. When I look at a player I probably look at them differently from everyone else. There are some physical stuff and football characteristics that you look for but there is something in me that when I look at a footballer and I analyse him I can see him playing in my team and that is always the biggest factor for me as you can imagine there is that many talented footballers around the world and they could give you 10 different players from different countries and they are all unbelievable footballers but I am looking for the one that will fit. Can he play as a full-back in my team? Can he play as a centre-back in my team? That helps my process because I have a real clear idea of what I want. There is nothing to suggest that people will be satisfied and that we have a formula but it is something that works for me.

You were asked after the Rangers game was it beyond your wildest dreams, you responded with you don't know what I dream of, football-wise, what do you dream of?

I would have preferred if he had been more specific. It was why I enjoyed the other night. I love those experiences. I love what football does to people, players, supporters. I love what those special moments are. The more I can collect on the journey the more my dreams are fulfilled. These are little pockets of time where you go jeez that will still be with me forever and if it stays with me forever, it will stay with the people I share it with forever. That's where it is. I have never been one to say I want to have 'x' amount of titles or 'x' amount of achievements whether that be individual or collective. For me to stay in my role for as long as I have, I have had to be successful and it drives me every day because I love winning things and creating those special moments. You can find that just meeting a person and football brings you into that space where you meet someone that inspires you and you share a moment. They are pretty simplistic dreams and they are non-defined which gets me up in the morning chasing the next one.