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Gordon Is Dropped As Brendan Gets Tough

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Titles aren’t decided in August. Everybody knows that. With Celtic facing six games in the Champions League and all the traveling and fatigue, both mental and physical, that such a long campaign would involve there will be bad days and the dropping of points. It is as good as certain, and all we can try to do is be patient and understanding when those days come.

You can also fortify against them, and you do that by putting as many points on the board as you can before they come. Today is significant in that very important regard.

Aberdeen have dropped four points already, in only three games. They would have been hoping to come to Celtic Park on a high; it’s not turned out that way, and instead they are coming knowing that a Celtic victory will open up a significant early gap.

Hearts’ start has been even worse; they’ve taken four points out a possible nine, but they can be probably be let off the hook for that as they’ve faced us already, and they secured an excellent 5-1 win last week over Inverness. They will have a good season, I think, but the early gap is not how they’d have liked to start.

Sevco were the team everyone in the media talked about at the start of the season; they were going to bag second place and do this and do that and blah blah blah. I’ve watched them over the last couple of weeks and to say they aren’t that good is an understatement. They are abysmal, in spite of being gifted an absurdly easy opening series of games. They struggled to win against both Dundee and Motherwell – requiring a last minute winner last week against the Steelmen at home – and they have us to play in a fortnight.

Celtic’s focus could not be more clearly laid out than it has been today, with his decision to drop Craig Gordon for the match. This is a major decision, the one that shows we’ve got a tough guy in charge who won’t play favourites and won’t forgive mistakes.

I have never seen a Celtic boss who has this much attention to detail, who has so quickly sussed out who he can rely on and who he can’t. Although we were all very harsh on Saidy Janko in midweek someone pointed out to me that the kid is mentally tough; he never hid in midweek. He always wanted the ball. Perhaps he’s more ready than I thought.

In spite of that courage, he too finds himself out of the team, as does Callum McGregor. Our manager has sorted out every issue the fans had in midweek … and he’s done it in a manner which should make it clear how tolerant he is of failure.

We absolutely can’t go wrong with this guy in charge.

We’re going to open up a huge gap on the rest, so that when mistakes come they won’t cost us.

In Brendan We Trust

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