Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou believes that his Hoops side are playing a ‘ridiculous’ amount of games during the regular busy winter schedule.
Last night, Celtic played their third fixture of the month, with a further six games still to come in December, as well as a final derby fixture before the winter break on the 2nd of January.
Speaking after his side’s victory over Real Betis, Ange Postecoglou was asked about his thoughts surrounding the fixture schedule as he stated his discontent with the number of games the Hoops face.
Postecoglou also admitted that the demands of his playstyle don’t help with the fact his squad are being forced to play two games every week this month.
“There’s no doubt about that. It’s a ridiculous amount of games we are having to play,” he said, as quoted by Sky Sports.
“And I guess it’s the way and the manner in which we play our football as well; it’s very demanding on the players. We don’t have the squad yet to cope with that, and that’s putting stress on, which we have had to deal with pretty much the whole way through.
“We still have seven games to go, remarkably, between now and the break. Hopefully, getting some game time for guys means they become options for us in terms of making them game-ready.
“Hopefully, when the break comes, we will get reinforcements and come out stronger.”
Every year at this time, the point of fixture scheduling is mentioned due to the amount which Celtic faces on a consistent basis.
Of course, we want to be competitive in every competition, so in a way playing all these games is a positive sign.
However, it is also a heavy load on the players. Particularly when there is a few weeks free in the schedule due to the winter break – could some of these games not just be played across that period of time?
A positive from last nights game for Ange will likely be that the fringe players who haven’t had much action at all this campaign have shown they are capable of putting in a performance for the 56-year old if called upon.
At this stage, we will need to hope there are no further injury worries within the squad to come, with so many games still left to play during this busy period.
