ANGE POSTECOGLOU says that he hasn’t done a good job as Celtic manager so far, taking responsibility for how underprepared his team were for their Champions League qualifier against FC Midtjylland.

A patchwork Celtic side earned a 1-1 draw against the Danes in the first leg of the tie, and they may have won a game they were dominating had Nir Bitton not been needlessly sent off shortly after debutant Liel Abada had put them ahead.

Postecoglou says though that the blame for the result lies squarely with him, and he vowed to have Celtic whipped into better shape for the return leg in Herning next Wednesday.

"We will be better prepared no doubt, in eight days' time,” Postecoglou said.

"In fact I don't think we will ever be as badly prepared as we were tonight and that's on me, going into such an important game.

“We have eight more days I feel confident that the preparation and the spirit we have, we will put in a good performance.

"It is on me. I’m the manager of the football club. I’m the one that takes that responsibility of providing support for the players and staff. If things aren’t happening it’s on me to make them happen.

“I haven’t done a great job so far to be honest, because with the disruptions we’ve had, we haven’t been able to bring the players in.

“My role is to try and reinforce this squad and to try to prepare this squad for what is ahead, and to their credit, the players didn’t look for excuses tonight.

“They put in a solid shift, and I’m just disappointed they didn’t get the rewards for what I thought was an outstanding performance.”

Postecoglou refused to blame either Bitton or goalkeeper Vasilis Barkas – who looked at fault for the equaliser – as he assessed the reasons behind the end result.

“Nir had already been booked and when you’ve been booked you have to be careful in your actions,” he said. “When you infringe again, you give the opportunity to the referee to give you another caution.

“It’s disappointing for him more than anything, because he was really keen to put in a strong performance.

“He had started the game really well for us, so it’s disappointing for him that he misses the second game as well.

“I’m getting a lot of glass half empty questions at the moment. I think there was plenty of positives tonight rather than people looking for little things that potentially didn’t go right.

“I thought it was a decent strike [for the equaliser], we limited them to a couple of shots on goal with a really brand new back four.

“The midfield worked their socks off. The amount of running that (Ismaila) Soro and Cal (McGregor) and Ryan Christie did was unbelievable.

“There’s nothing I’m disappointed in tonight. I’m frustrated at the result because the players didn’t get the result I thought they deserved.”