Everything Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou said to the media after Celtic's 2-1 defeat to Rangers at Hampden in the Scottish Cup semi-final...
Your thoughts on your team's performance today?
We are obviously disappointed by the outcome, an opportunity to get to a final that we didn't take. It was a typical semi-final, a very tight game between both teams and it was just decided by moments in the game We had our moments and they had theirs, unfortunately, they are the ones who got over the line.
Was there a sense of disappointment that in the last game against Rangers you created a lot of chances but this game was very tight and opportunities were few and far between?
It is just the nature of cup football, a semi-final, they are never going to be open games, players know what is at stake, they know the consequences of actions so both teams played fairly conservative, it wasn't' an open game, we just had to stay disciplined in our approach and wait for our moments and when they came we had to capitalise and we did on one occasion but not on others and in extra time they capitalised on theirs.
Was that a surprise to you, did you expect a bit more as Celtic hit the bar through Cameron Carter-Vickers and then Rangers go up the park and score?
That's how these games are usually decided when you have two strong teams and they are rarely open games. We did have that opportunity to go 2-0 up, but it wasn't' taken and they went up the other end and scored and even then there were moments when we could have done a little bit better but in the end, they took their moment in extra time and won the game.
You have spoken a lot about the players showing character and they are going to have to show that again if they want to bounce back and win the league aren't they?
We have had to be resilient all year and this is another challenge for us. We are disappointed we didn't get to another final, we are disappointed for our fans. But irrespective of what happened today we have five games to concentrate on winning the league, starting next week. We need to make sure that we use this disappointment to fuel our endeavours in this next series of games.
Did you feel that you would maybe have had the edge over Rangers in extra time given that they had gone to extra time on Thursday?
I wouldn't make too much of that stuff. At the end of the day, it's two teams giving everything right until the final minute. There's so much at stake. It's got nothing to do with tiredness The 28, 29, and 30 players that came on today gave everything they could. It's what you expect in this kind of game. We certainly don't expect to be running over the opposition as that is now how it works.
Did you struggle to get the control you normally like because it was a bit too frantic at times?
Yeah, well that's me looking at it in isolation as a game of football. It's human nature to feel the reaction, to take the consequences in terms of being knocked out of the competition, so that tends to mean the players are a little more conservative in all their actions in terms of the way we play our football, the way we press them, the things you have the freedom to do in a league game. Within that context I didn't feel it was a game where we were out of control ... maybe in extra time, after they scored we lost our way a little bit and we could have been a little bit more disciplined just to stick to our principles but I guess the players were feeling disappointed at falling behind.
There were some players struggling after the game Cameron Carter-Vickers and Liel Abada - how are they?
Just because they gave everything, mate. Liel hasn't played a lot so we knew, particularly in a game like this, he would only get to the hour mark. All the players gave everything, there was nothing more. We had some strength off the bench, particularly with the first set of subs. They made a difference, gave us some more energy going forward. I haven't spoken to the medical crew yet.
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