Luke McCowan speaking to a range of journalists following Celtic’s victory over Livingston on Saturday.
What did you make of that game? It felt like a chaotic start.
“Yeah, it was a chaotic start. Two teams wanted to play open football. If I’m honest, it’s not really the kind of start we want – we want to dominate as much as we can and we didn’t early on. But it showed the spirit of the players. We fought back because we’ve got quality in the team.”
You mentioned quality – Benji [Nygren] seemed to make a big impact.
“Benji, who’s staring at me right now, comes up with great quality in the game, but we’ve got that all over the pitch. When you believe in it more, you see it. We’re just happy that we stayed on top and managed to maintain it.”
From the outside, it looked like there was a lot of confidence even when you went behind.
“Yeah, definitely. That belief was always there. Regardless of going 1–0 down or 2–1 down, we’ve shown it before in previous games. We just need to stay calm and focused, even with noise outside. We did that and managed to almost win the game in the first half and then keep control from there.”
Does it feel like things are really coming together now?
“I wasn’t really hard on it in terms of overthinking. The main thing is we stick together as a group, keep pushing and keep fighting. Our qualities will shine through. It’s always harder this time of year with so many games and a few injuries, but we keep believing. The most important thing is winning, and we did that.”
How are you finding your role playing wide? Is that something you’re enjoying more?
“It’s a battle, I’ll tell you that. They pinpointed me on the left side and started putting every header on me, so that wasn’t great! But listen, I’m starting and I’m playing, and that’s the most important thing. As long as I’m helping the team and getting the game time I wanted, I’m happy.”
There have been a lot of goals conceded recently. Is that becoming a concern?
“I wouldn’t say it’s a concern, but you don’t want that to always be the case. You want to be as solid as possible. It’s something we need to gel together on and make sure it doesn’t happen as often. We’ll talk it out on the training pitch, figure out the problem and fix it.”
Some people have described the style as ‘risk and reward’ football. Is that fair?
“It’s alright when the rewards are like today and you win. We invite teams on, we like to pass the ball, and our possession numbers are usually higher than most teams. That’s the risk and reward. If you lose it in certain areas, they’re straight into your final third. We know that’s our style – it’s just about being solid when we’ve got the ball and stopping teams from countering.”
Is the style becoming second nature now?
“We’re not really doing anything different. We just need to keep talking about what we’re doing and trust the manager’s ideas. The players have worked hard to take those ideas on board.”
With rivals slipping up, does that make upcoming games even more important?
“Yeah, definitely. December and January are massive in this league. You can’t pass up opportunities like that. The next performance has to be big against a good side [Motherwell] in good form, and we just need to keep on top of it.”
Does it feel like a pivotal stage of the season?
“It does, yeah. Every game is massive. You go on a bad run and it’s the end of the world, but we just need to keep talking, keep fighting, and we’ll get there.”
Callum McFadden 