'Incredible' Ange Postecoglou & Celtic's Lennoxtown battlefield

Those were the heartfelt and emotional words of Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou after the Hoops had swept Rangers aside 3-0 at Parkhead last February to go one point clear at the top of the Premiership.

It's a position they have not relinquished since. They may have been invincible under Brendan Rodgers but they haven't stopped being incredible under Postecoglou.

Former Celtic midfielder Peter Grant has watched on with interest at how his beloved club has gone from strength to strength since they inflicted that heavy defeat, that bruising marker, on their main rivals.

It was a performance that had Postecoglou's Celtic DNA stamped all over it; it was the night when 'Ange-ball' was displayed in all its splendour and glory in front of a capacity crowd in Glasgow's east end who gleefully lapped it all up.

"It is great credit to the manager as that is the way Celtic have been playing for the best part of 18 months now," Grant told The Celtic Way. "You have to tip your hat to Ange but you also have to big up the players who have come in and done the job.

"Managers can demand things from you and tell you what to do but if you do not have the willingness to do it then it's not going to be there in the first place. I know the manager can change it all around with the squad he has but that is not always easy to do.

"Everybody at Celtic clearly wants to play at their best. They have all bought into what the manager is telling them. There are a hell of a lot of managers out there who tell their players what to do and then end up pulling their hair out on a Saturday.

"I was on duty for Celtic TV at the Livingston game recently and there were seven minutes to go, if I remember right, and even then there were five Celtic players around one Livingston player trying to win the ball back.

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"Lots of people talk about Pep Guardiola and the high-press football that his teams played at Barcelona and now at Manchester City. That style has been there forever and a day; we tried to play it at Celtic in my day. We were told if somebody lifted their head, make sure you stopped them from playing the ball forward. That was never in question.

"But it is all one having demands placed upon you by the manager - you have to go out there, play and show a willingness to do it. This group of players have that, regardless of who is selected.

"You look at the Celtic bench against Livingston and that is a team who could also win the Scottish Premiership title. That's what they have built: a group who are just hungry to succeed. Many years ago the Celtic supporters would have got a wee bit frustrated if it was 0-0 for a period of time. Nowadays it's almost as if they know and they are just waiting, it is a matter of time."

The former Hoops stalwart reckons not only can the current run be traced way back to that 3-0 win last February but so too can the consecration of Postecoglou's status as a true man of the Celtic people.

"Every Celtic team should send their supporters up the road with their fish supper or bottle of beer happy and with a smile on their faces," he said. "That's what Postecoglou means when he says things like making the Celtic supporters feel good and letting them forget their problems. It is their life, it is never going to go away.

"At this moment in time the players are not playing for the name on the back they are playing for the badge on the front and that is what the supporters are seeing under Postecoglou. As long as you give them that commitment, the fans will be happy.

"Everybody just passes through [Celtic Park] but the supporters will always be there. The name on the back means nothing as players come and go. Managers come and go too - but the supporters will always be there. Everybody knows what they are representing all the time and the Celtic manager and the players have bought into all this fantastically well."

From the outside looking in, Grant reckons that a major theme underpinning the success is an attitude that there will be no quarter asked or given at Celtic's training ground in the fight to convince Postecoglou that they should be in the starting 11.

"The hardest part of the week for Celtic must be the training at Lennoxtown," he insists. "When you are working with top-quality players everybody is watching your bad touch and your stray pass because they will be on you, the bar has been raised so high.

"That is what it looks like to me. Lennoxtown must resemble a battlefield at times as there is so much quality on display and every player is trying to catch the manager's eye desperate to play.

"That is the demand that the players are putting on each other on a daily basis and they are reaping the rewards for it. Long may it continue. It hasn't happened by accident or came about by chance or luck, it has come from the fact that they have dedicated themselves to their craft and made those sacrifices you need to make to be a quality player at the top level.

"My father, god rest him, had a wonderful saying: 'If you don't have a first touch and a final pass, put your boots in the bin!' To be as relentless as they are against top-quality players day in and day out puts you in good stead for a Saturday as you are already up to that level.

"It is not measured by the amount of time you are putting in on the training ground either - but rather by the type of work that you put in and the quality of that work."

On that note, a particular point of pride for Grant was seeing Postecoglou's 'we never stop' mantra adopted when the Hoops went into the Champions League. Despite results - Celtic finished bottom of the group - the 57-year-old was buoyed by the team's approach.

"The big question being flung about by everybody was would Ange Postecoglou play the same way in Europe?" Grant said. "When you play against the best teams in Europe it is similar to when the likes of Livingston come to Parkhead - do they have a go at Celtic?

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"Celtic were in that same scenario when they went to the Santiago Bernabeu to take on Real Madrid. Were they going to sit in or wait to get beat? Celtic didn't do that, they had a go and tried to win every game. They never changed and the manager let the players stand up to those tests. I admired that greatly.

"The five substitutions rule has enabled him to make sure that the tempo does not drop in most games and that the players that you are replacing are in some cases even better quality. Nothing drops in this team. The subs come on and they raise it again. It is remarkable. He hasn't changed that for European games.

"People say to me that's all well and good but Celtic still lost 5-1 away to Real Madrid but I look at it that the other way and say that they should have gotten something out of the RB Leipzig match away and they should have won against Shakhtar Donetsk in Poland. They are all positives in the respect of the way you go out and attack European games. That was the biggest question mark about Postecoglou's style and method of play and Celtic answered it emphatically against the European big guns.

"The players know exactly what they are doing. The ones that he has brought in are ready to perform the role that he wants them to do in the team. He is a clever man. He speaks about Celtic as if he has been involved with the club for 100 years in terms of traditions and respecting the institution of the football club. It is different when you play for or manage Celtic. You are representing this fantastic club and all its traditions and history twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

"When you represent the Celtic fan base you have to give it everything, blood sweat and tears. Thankfully Postecoglou and more importantly the squad of players have grasped that nettle from day one. You can see that from the way the players play and their commitment to the cause."

It was Coca-Cola that once ran the famous slogan 'eat, sleep, drink football'. One year on from the landmark Glasgow Derby victory, Postecoglou and his men clearly continue to eat, sleep, drink Celtic.

Grant and every member of the faithful would not have it any other way.  That's what makes the supporters feel good - and that is something special.