Every word Ange Postecoglou said on Celtic's Tannadice title-clincher, SFWA awards controversy and scaling mountains

If you could give us a squad update for tomorrow and how the squad feel with the chance to clinch the title?

Everyone's OK after the weekend so we don't expect any change in terms of the ones available. Josip Juranovic is still not fir for tomorrow. He has half a chance for the weekend. We'll see. He's in rehab, but everyone else is OK. And in terms of the general feeling, yeah they're good. We had a good session yesterday. They're in good spirits and looking forward to it.

How special could this be tomorrow?

Yeah, absolutely. We're under no illusions that tomorrow night we've got the opportunity to make it a special night for the football club and our supporters. I'm sure they'll enjoy it. I guess it's one of those - after last year's disappointments, not just the fact that obviously we didn't have success as a football club, but they weren't able to feel a part of it because they weren't allowed in the stadium - I think this year everyone's put in maximum effort, including our supporters. Everything they had pent up from last year, they've kind of released this year in a positive way so I'm sure everyone's looking forward to the final two games. Our role in that is to just make sure we continue on with our good form and continue on from the football we played on the weekend. Take that into tomorrow night and take the opportunity to make it a special night.

You were at the Scottish Football Writers Association awards on Sunday night where you got your award for manager the year - there has been a bit of fallout after it because of the content of one of the after-dinner speakers... what were your thoughts on that when you're listening to it?

I wasn't there the whole night but I wasn't there for that. It's fair to say that I guess the content was probably not appropriate. To be honest, I don't even know if it's appropriate at anything. With the way that you need to understand how people feel about these things, but I think the key thing about that is you can turn IT into a controversy but I just don't think people learn anything from that. Make it a teaching moment to be better for the people who have the responsibility of organising those nights, an opportunity just to do things a little bit better. A lot better. And understand that the people in that room, you have to take into account their own sort of beliefs and feelings but, aside from that I think they've approached it the right way, the organisers. They've apologised for it, but (it's) just an opportunity to be better next time, rather than making it a controversy. I don't think you end up learning anything from that - just be better, appreciate people and respect people's views.

You've been recognised by your fellow pros and also now the football writers as well, how does that feel for you?

It's obviously hugely humbling and I take a lot of pride (in it). Again, I'm representative of a larger group so you receive that on behalf of the group of people that have worked awfully hard to make something and create something special this year.

And I think part of it is that just the fact that I guess going into it there wasn't a great deal of expectation in terms of success, whether that was because of me and my own background or just the ground we needed to make up. I think whether it's the PFA or the writers, I think people just recognise the challenge we had and how we've embraced that challenge and so I take great pride in it. I didn't get the one I was favourite for - sacked by Christmas - but I got everything else, so it's OK.

Thirty games unbeaten in the league - how much importance are you putting on extending that run and taking it into next season?

None at all. Because then I would have said 'did I want to extend 29 or 28?' You start with one. I think all you can do - and what we've done this year - is chip away. Every week is important. We've taken every game with the same sort of preparation and intent, equal respect for every opponent at home and away and not looked beyond that. That's served us really well to be in the position we are because 30 games ago, we were way behind in terms of looking like a team that could end up being champions. So, you know, 30 games later, I think we've taken an approach that's got us to this point. and if we start thinking about 'well, let's extend it to 31 or 32' that's never been our goal. Our goal every week is just to be the best possible team we can be, play our football, respect the opponent, respect the occasion and be our best. For the most part, we've been at our best and even when we haven't been we've still found a way to get the job done.

Moving into the last week of the season, as have been any moves yet terms of Jota and Cameron Carter-Vickers to turn those loan deals into permanent deals?

That's stuff that's happening in the background constantly and as I've said all along my role in that and the players' role in that is to make sure that we finish the season strong. People are working on those things behind the scenes and they'll come to a natural conclusion when the time is right but we haven't put it against any timescale or against any urgency because I didn't want it to affect the players and their ability to help us achieve what we need to this year. And to their credit, both those guys have been outstanding.

Is this going to be the best moment of your career or one of the biggest achievements?

I've always said in the past I've tried not to separate all my successes in terms of trying to rank them because I just feel like that's been disrespectful to people I'll share them with. To have success in the game, to end up as champions, only one team does that every year in every league and you know how hard it is to attain. But in terms of how I feel and where it will sit with me, you'll get the best sort of understanding of that after it happens. I know it may sound bizarre but I just don't think that way - you know, how I'm going to feel after it happens. I think I've always tried to approach it where what's most important at the moment is that I help prepare this team for a game tomorrow that potentially could make us champions and, once that happens, you'll get sort of a better feeling of what it'll mean to me on a personal level as much as I can sort of reveal on that front in terms of how I personally feel. But to think about it beforehand, and the task we've had, it's like anything else I guess: until you reach the summit you don't want to think how you're going to feel when you're there.

Do we have much work still to do in the game in Scotland to make sure that the game is welcoming to everyone, but women in particular?

I think society as a whole I wouldn't want to sort of break it up into sections. I think there are opportunities and there are lessons for everyone so if people make mistakes along the way it's a teaching moment for all of us - whether that's in an industry we're directly involved in with this situation (like) football or if you're a football writer it's an opportunity to be better. But that goes for everyone who even isn't involved at that moment to understand. It's a really important part of society today. I know that we sometimes feel like that unless we're personally offended, we shouldn't get involved in that discussion but my own feelings on it is that you've always got to have empathy. You've got to understand, you've got to walk in other people's shoes to understand how it affects them. And I think once we all we're all mindful of that, then there'll be fewer moments like that where people potentially make a mistake because they've thought about it beforehand, they've thought about every person in that room. So, again, I don't want to sit in judgement and I think if you turn it into like I said a story about that night and the controversy I think there's a failure to learn from it. But the people who need to be asked about itare the ones who have already made a statement about it. You take that on board and you try to be better. We can all try to be better - it doesn't mean we're perfect. I've made plenty of mistakes. You just try to take every moment to be better as a person and as a society.

So you don't know how you're going to feel after winning the league title but you have managed big games before: cup finals, league-clinching games, World Cup matches. How do you feel head of games like this? Do you prepare differently? Are you extra excited?

No, I'm always excited. I think the one thing is that I try to impress on the people I share this with is that every game you play, every moment you have, you can create something special and so you don't prepare for it in any different way because you might miss along the way the opportunity to create a moment that lasts for a lifetime or beyond. So every game is an opportunity to create something new, every game has the potential within it to create a special moment. For the big games, my role is just to prepare the team and prepare everyone to be at our best because if we're at our best  -or try to be at our best every time we go out there - then there's an opportunity for something special to happen. Whether that's a big game or it's just a normal league game or a cup game, home or away. I think if you ask people this year about defining moments, you'll get many different ones. One could be Tony Ralston scoring last-minute against Ross County. That's something that I think will remain with people - if you're not prepared for that moment in that game, then you're going to miss some gold along the way. So, for me, every game is approached the same way. Every game, for me, is an opportunity to create something special.

How do you expect Dundee United to line up tomorrow?

They've had a good season. Tam's (Courts) done a good job with them. And again, you can see that it's been pretty tight throughout the season, especially in that middle part of the table for clubs like Dundee United that had to work really hard to get themselves into the top half. They've got some good players. They're well organised and they'll be a good battle for us. But again, for us what's most important is that if we bring the intensity and tempo to our game that we have consistently over the last few months then we give ourselves a chance of success and are hard to stop. Hearts hadn't lost for quite a while before we played them. Ross County were on a great run before we played them. Rangers were in great form before we played them. We've tackled every game and we've overcome those challenges because we know when we play our football we're hard to stop.

Do you expect there to be many outgoings - either fringe players or loans?

I think that's part of the process. We had a fair few leaving in the last summer window before I got here, some as soon as I got here which I didn't take personally. I think that's the nature of football. We've sort of rebuilt the squad but we're still sort of 'stage one', we still need to get a strong squad stronger and more robust for what's ahead. With that, naturally, there'll be some players who won't be part of the picture next year. Some who will feel 'OK, we need to get some game-time into them because we see them here longer-term but they will benefit from playing'. So we'll make all those decisions. I don't expect to see as much transfer activity incoming as last summer but we will still have more players coming in and there will be outgoings as well.

Christopher Jullien - can we expect to see him before the end of the season and where does he fit in for next season?

Chris is training hard. He's available. We'll see how the last couple of games go. It's obviously been a challenge for him and Stephen Welsh because with Cameron and Carl (Starfelt) they're going really well, particularly this last period where we haven't had any midweek games. My feeling has always been, in terms of rotation, that most parts of the field you're pretty comfortable to rotate but defensively you need understanding and cohesion and it's harder to give guys game-time. That's an unfortunate situation Chris has been in but, in terms of the future, we'll sit down at the end of the year like we will with all the players and we'll chart a way forward. With all these things, we will end up doing what's best for the player and what's best for the club.

Are there any particular moments or games from earlier in the season when you knew the players had bought fully into your ideas even if the individual results didn't go your way?

I think there are quite a few times this year where I think we've kind of stuck to our principles and it's been important. I've spoken about when we lost 4-0 to Leverkusen, which wasn't a great result and you don't like losing by that margin, but I think the way we approached that that night and played our football... the players pretty much stuck to our principles where we just got beaten by a very good team and got punished for mistakes. And I think at that moment, the players then looked to 'what's my reaction going to be?' I think that's where you can sort of make sure that when you've got the players' backs in that situation and you support them because they were trying to do what I was telling him to do then they buy more belief into that - that 'OK, if things don't go well we're not going to get hung out to dry here. He'll support us'. So those kinds of moments are really important when the results aren't there because that's when the pressure is at its most intense for you to potentially change your approach or to try and appease people who are sort of being critical of what you're doing. You've got to stay strong through that. That's easy for me to say - I've been through it before and I kinda know that you need to do that. But for the players, they need to see that before they believe in it. I think when you go through a tough time like that and come out the other side and they come into training and I'm still saying the same things and we're gonna approach games in the same way then they buy into that and then, you know, I think there'll be different times in the year. When you talk about critical moments, you know, we've scored a few late ones, goals to get us results in games this year. All those goals came from us, in the dying moments of the game when we know we pretty much have to win, still playing our football. Whether that was Ross County, when we were still playing out from the back or Dundee United when we're in the last minute when Liel scores and we've 10 men but we're still trying to pass our way through to get into a wide area. The characteristics are there at the most desperate of times and that shows you that the players have really bought into what we're trying to do

With how well the players have adapted and performed in this first season, does that become the primary focus - to get the team to that next step? Trying to make sure that they adhere to that philosophy and resist the temptation to go long if and when they're pressed high up as they will be in the Champions League?

Yeah, that'll be probably the next layer of it and we are sure that we're gonna get really tested. That's the Champions League. I think even in the league next year teams will try to find different ways to try and negate our effectiveness. That's my role: to give the players further layers of solutions that exist without having to change our basic philosophy of the way we want to play. I think the players will come back next year wanting that, they'll be looking at me and the coaching staff and saying 'OK, well, what's next?' We've got to deliver, we can't just roll up next year and say 'OK, we're gonna do exactly what we did last year'. There's got to be other layers to it. That's how we improve. They want to improve and by adding extra layers hopefully then we'll be able to work our way through the challenges we'll have next year. I mean, that's the exciting bit for me. That's what kind of keeps me motivated - you climb the mountain, but you're at the top and you look over and there's a bigger mountain just down the road. You go 'Wel,l I wouldn't mind having a crack at that'. That'll be us next year.