ANGE Postecoglou remained guarded on his interest in Croatian right back Josip Juranovic tonight following Celtic’s 2-0 win over AZ Alkmaar in the first leg of the Europa League play-off double header at Parkhead.

Postecoglou is keen to increase his options in what was a problem position for the Glasgow giants during their bitterly disappointing 2020/21 season despite the fine form of Anthony Ralston.

A fee of £2.5m has been agreed with Legia Warsaw for Juranovic, who played for his country in the Euro 2020 finals this summer, but Postecoglou declined to discuss the player until the transfer is concluded.

However, the Greek-Australian coach, who has brought in Liel Abada, Kyogo Furuhashi, Joe Hart and James McCarthy so far this summer, stressed that he needs to strengthen his squad further before the transfer window closes at the end of August.

“We have to sign him first,” he said. “I would love to be able to say yes or no. But nothing has been completed yet.  

“Tonight you saw, as anyone who has watched the past four or five games can tell you, the players give everything.  

“There is a core group I’m going to continually. We need to support them. It’s our responsibility to provide some extra players to ease the burden.” 

Meanwhile, Postecoglou stated that Ralston will continue to feature in the first team even if he is successful in his bid to sign a new right back due to the punishing schedule of domestic and European fixtures that Celtic have coming up.

“I’m not bringing in people to replace people,” he said. “I’m bringing in players to support the ones we have here. 

“It’s inconceivable that they’re going to play every game. Callum McGregor probably thinks he can – and he probably could. But we have to be careful. 

“I’m not looking for players to replace the ones we’ve got. I’m looking for players to complement what we’ve got, so we can keep building a strong squad, which we’re going to need. 

“Especially playing the football we do, we need bodies. I’ve said right back is a priority position because Anthony is the only one we’ve got. He’s doing unbelievably well and he needs support.

“Anthony Ralston was just unbelievable tonight. At the end there, he was still sprinting forward trying to create things. And I know he would have been running on empty, having played every minute of every bloody game."