Celtic’s Ange Postecoglou reacts to crowd restrictions announcement

Celtic and Ange Postecoglou have a lot to be happy about at the moment. The Hoops won the first trophy of the season this Sunday, with a 2-1 win against Hibernian in the Scottish League Cup final, with Kyogo Furuhashi scoring a brace on his first big Hampden Park occasion. But they, as well as every other club in Scotland, have been handed a blow as it was announced today that new crowd restrictions are set to be in place.

From December 26, only 500 fans will be allowed into stadiums for a three week period. Thus, essentially it would mean playing in a closed doors atmosphere.

That is far from ideal but the safety and health of the public comes before anything else and let’s see how the situation develops.

Postecoglou does not appear to be a big fan of playing behind closed doors. As reported by Sky Sports (via 67 Hail Hail), the Celtic manager said in a press conference today:

"“I don’t like football being played behind closed doors. I had a season of it in Japan and I just didn’t enjoy it. For me, it becomes a different game.“It’s a different environment for the players. Of course, my preference is to play with supporters in there, even with a reduced capacity. As with all these things we have to follow the guidelines and the protocols in place and just get on with it.”"

The Celtic manager has reacted to the crowd restrictions announcement

It is safe to say that the situation is far from ideal but with there being new fears around the pandemic, whatever steps are necessary must be taken and followed.

For Celtic though, it will especially be a blow, as they have a Glasgow Derby against the Rangers coming up, scheduled to be played on January 2.

There being no crowd at Parkhead for that game will be a blow for Postecoglou’s side although a possible solution to the situation has been floated around recently. Of course, there are several other important games across the Premiership scheduled to be played over the next few weeks as well, thus, Celtic are not the only side affected.

There have been suggestions that the upcoming winter break, which is scheduled to go from January 3 to January 21, is brought forward, so the fixtures are not affected. It will be very interesting to see what decision the SPFL takes regarding the matter.