Ange Postecoglou offers defence of Celtic 'heavyweight champions' but vents on lingering Treble problem

Ange Postecoglou has ordered his Celtic players to blank their Scottish Cup Final thoughts and instead focus on getting their mojo back.

The Hoops face a historic clash with Inverness at Hampden on June 3 as they chase a world-record breaking eighth domestic Treble. But they warmed up for that date with destiny with another less than convincing display as they followed up last week’s Old Firm defeat to Rangers by drawing 2-2 with St Mirren.

Postecoglou was frustrated with his players’ half-hearted approach to winning the ball back and urged them to make correcting that their only concern in the two week run-up to the Caley Thistle clash. He said: “If they’re thinking about the cup final now, that’s a problem. Because when you start thinking too far ahead, you miss what’s happening now. We can’t have players thinking about performing on that day. Perform today, perform next week and then focus on the final.

“That’s vital or what happened today will happen again. It’ll be a struggle again and we’ll be fortunate. The football we’ve played this year. It’s been pretty compelling, at a very high level for a very long time.

“But you can’t expect to go off a certain part of it and expect it to roll on just because we’ve reached this point. It’s human nature and I understand it but my job is to remind the lads that, if you keep doing that, the struggle continues. They know how to change it, by committing to all sides of our game. If we do that, we’ll play the football we want to.”

Curtis Main struck twice for Stephen Robinson’s Buddies either side of Kyogo Furuhashi’s 31st goal of the season to put Saints on the verge of becoming the only Scottish side to beat the Hoops twice this season. But skipper Callum McGregor left the