Ange Postecoglou's Celtic Q+A in full: Reo Hatate back and 'always getting difficult draws'

How is everyone fitness-wise, and how is Hatate?

He's good, and he has trained all week. As I said last week, we just thought with the game on the plastic surface, it would not be wise to bring him back. So he is good and available. Everyone else from last week is also all clear.

You have made a great start to the season so far. You are playing Hearts on Sunday, who previously finished third. Would you say it is the toughest test you have faced so far?

They are all tough tests. Aberdeen, Ross County and Kilmarnock all had their own challenges. Every game has its own obstacles to overcome. As you said, we have had a strong start to the season, and our performances are slowly improving. We have had more time to train than we usually do, so we have put a lot of work in with the guys during the week, and that is helping our performances improve.

READ MORE: Sead Haksabanovic Celtic transfer scouting: A creative wide playmaker with brilliant ball striking

What did you make of Hearts' performance in Europe?

You can see they have strengthened squad-wise from last year. They had a strong season last year but relied on a core group of players. Obviously, with European football this year, they had to expand their squad. I think with Europe, I have always seen it as a positive experience for the players and given they are still in the tie, I am sure they will have come away with some belief and will give us a tough test on the weekend.

You mentioned strengthening squads. Celtic are linked with Haksabanovic this week. What can you tell us about that move and if he is coming to Parkhead?

I think we have been linked with a player every time I have done one of these. If and when we sign a player, we will announce it. As I have said all along, we are active and agile in the market. If the right person comes along and we can do a deal, then we will. At the moment, though, nothing has really changed on that front.

Is a winger/ attacker a priority at the moment?

Again, I have been pretty consistent if you check my press conferences. If we can get a player in a variety of positions, it has just got to be an ideal player. Our recruiting this year has been around, making our squad more robust than last year. If you look at the players have brought in, that is what they have added to the squad. It is not about a specific position as such. If we can find a particular player or a couple who can play a couple of positions then I think it can help us.

Hearts have obviously signed another Australian player in the summer. That is three they have in now. Other teams have also signed from Australia. Is it exciting for people back home to be watching this league now?

Yeah, I think so. It is good for Australian football. This league is a good one for Australian players. I think it gives them a good stepping stone into Europe, and it is a tough, competitive league. I think, particularly with Hearts, Cammy Devlin coming in and doing well, it probably encouraged them to go and look again and showed there is good value there. Certainly, with Nathaniel and Kyle, who I have known for a while, they are good characters. It is good to see other Australians in the league now, I think they can add something to this league. They will be challenged themselves to perform as I think it is a pretty competitive league.

Was the Scottish league always viewed in Australia as a good place to come and develop?

Yeah, there has always been a strong influence here. We have had our platform with Tommy (Rogic) being here, big Dukes (Mark Viduka) being here and Jackson Irvine. Even at other clubs, Ryan McGowan, who is now back. There are some parallels there with the Australian leagues. One thing with Australian athletes is they are strong characters in a sporting sense. I think they will be a good fit.

Where are the club in terms of players who might be going out the door during this window, such as the likes of Mikey Johnston and Albian Ajetiti?

I don't want to talk about specific players as they are all individual cases. It is about finding opportunities for these guys to play if they are not going to get the opportunity to do so here. The guys who are in that position need to drive that themselves. If they want to find more opportunities, then we will certainly help in that regard. There are still 10 days or so left in the transfer window, particularly around Mikey. I am really keen to get him some game time. I still think Mikey is an outstanding talent he just has not been able to get a good run of games. If we can get him an environment where he can do that, then he can start realising the potential we all know he has. Everyone is training well and part of the training group. If opportunities arise over the next 10 days then we will definitely look at them.

As far as the Champions League is concerned, it is the draw next week, we spoke to Callum McGregor earlier, and he mentioned that he'd like Real Madrid, do you have any ideas of any big names that you would like to see at Celtic Park?

I think irrespective we will see some big name clubs at Celtic Park. I'll defer to the skipper on that one if that's what he wants. I'm usually pretty good at draws as I usually get the most difficult one available, so that certainly fits that criteria. 

READ MORE: £6m rated Sead Haksabanovic proves Ange Postecoglou is in the Celtic construction business - Tony Haggerty

Harry Kewell did an interview last week, and he backed up a statement that you made about learning and growing from the backroom staff around you and never standing still in your own thoughts on the game essentially - do you feel that you have benefited as a coach and manager yourself with the current coaching team around you?

I think it is well chronicled that I don't take a crew of people around with me because in every environment I've been in I have worked with different people and new people and I think you always learn. People have different personalities, characters and different upbringings and different knowledge of the game. Whilst I have been doing this for a very long time I am always looking for areas where I can expose myself to different kinds of scenarios with different people so I can continue my growth both as a manager and as a person. I think that's the way you do it. When I came here I inherited most of the football staff, coaches and other staff and it has been great working with them. I enjoy working with them. Like I said it keeps me on my toes and if I sort of had a group of people that I took around with me then I wouldn't need to convince them about what I am going to do. When I came in here it wasn't just the players, it was the whole staff that I had to get to believe in the idea of the football team I wanted us to be and the football that I wanted us to play. I enjoy the challenge of getting people to believe in the direction that we are heading in.

You spoke about growth, and one player I wanted to mention was Greg Taylor, he is tenacious and do you think that he has laid the criticisms of the past to rest because he is now in an environment where he is thriving?

It is probably a combination of all of those things. For every footballer, their journey is never sort of linear in that it starts at a low base and finishes at a high base. You have got your ups and downs and sometimes you learn from times when you have to struggle. If you don't have resilience and tenacity because at some point in your career you'll get tested and for a lot of players it is a recurring theme in their careers but it is your ability to overcome that allows you to take your football career on an upward trajectory. All players want to take their careers to the highest level but I think too often players think that it is a smooth ascent and it never is. You have got to go through ups and downs and you have to show resilience and you have got to convince people and you have got to prove yourself all the time. That never changes. My experience with Greg has only been over the last 12 months and from the moment I arrived he is one of the few who stayed on. From the start, he was an eager learner and a hard worker in training and they are the main characteristics that I look at. There is at times a misconception about the kind of players that would fit into my system there are very few players who wouldn't fit into the kind of football that I want to play. There is not a footballer on the planet who does not want to play this kind of football where you have the ball and be dominant and those kinds of things. Apart from their skillset, the key criteria for us, is that they are coachable and that part of their learning capacity is being resilient. It's a tough road to take but Greg has got that and the challenge for him now is to keep improving and to keep getting better. He is still a young man there are still areas of his game he will want to improve and I know he can and my role and the club's role is to make sure the environment keeps pushing all our players to be the best they can be.

What sort of game are you expecting on Sunday as Hearts have more attacking options and are a more attacking team - do you expect them to come and have a go?

Irrespective of what we expect from the opposition it is up to us to impose our game on them. Every game is a bit of an arm-wrestle where both teams will try and impose themselves on proceedings, and our job is to try and make sure we dominate the game in the areas we like to dominate. We want to play the game in the areas we like to play and if that happens irrespective of how the opposition is set up then we can force their hand to make changes. Hearts have got some good attacking options, and they have brought in Lawrence Shankland this year, and he is already scoring goals as well as Barrie McKay and Liam Boyce. They are a threat up front. I thought that last season too. That is why they finished where they did in the league. It wasn't a game style built around defending. It is up to us to dictate how the game is played. For that to happen, we have to make sure that we start with the right intent and intensity, particularly at home and that makes us hard to stop.

Most people are expecting a two-horse race again, and Sunday will be a big indicator. Can Hearts challenge this season?

I don't really put a lot of thought into what other clubs' ambitions are, to be honest. All we have got to do is to make sure that whenever we play against any opposition, we are the best that we can be. We need to look after our own ambitions as that is really important, and I think we have shown over the last year or so that we treat every opponent with the same respect irrespective of their ambitions and whether they are up at the top or down at the bottom of the league. We know that every game has got its challenges. Our own ambitions are more important than other clubs.

We had five different scorers last week, and that is important - do you see those levels of competition in training every day?

In terms of the five different scorers, we have tried to be that way from the start, and our midfielders and wingers got a lot of goals last season. From our perspective, our two strikers got double digits in terms of goals, so I think we have always been that kind of team. This year our centre-backs have scored early, but even last season Cameron Carter-Vickers got four league goals. We have always been a team that wants to have multiple threats, and I don't think necessarily that it is the competition for places that is driving that. I think it is just the way we play our football. It is inevitable that teams will try and stop us one way or another, but if we can have more than one way of breaking through teams, that makes us harder to stop. The competition for places in the sense that we have a strong squad means our training levels are really good and it is not just the eleven players who are the focus of training but the squad of 25 players who every day bring a high level. Whether you start the game or not you are forced to train at your best which in turn makes everybody be at their best on game day.

One of the most impressive aspects of last season was the mental strength and resilience in big moments - how do you prepare the team mentally for the step up to the Champions League?

You have just got to approach it the same way there are difficulties, whatever the challenges may be, and the answers lie within ourselves and within our football. That is how we have got to where we are at the moment. There is no point in looking for a magic bullet now just because the challenge is different. In terms of the opposition you are facing, you have just got to deal with it the same way. Every challenge and what you look for is how can we overcome it. I keep telling the guys the answers lie within us and within our football and not from something different, new or special. Whenever we have needed something, we have not gone away from the kind of football team who or who the boys are as players in finding a solution to it. That will be the case in the Champions League and whatever challenges we have domestically this season.