Ian Durrant has been in the papers today, saying that he thinks the closer we get to ten in a row the more pressure we will feel. Let me tell you, he has no idea what pressure is. He may well be right that there will be heightened expectation on us to get over that line, but he knows nothing of what real stress feels like and he won’t know for a while yet.
Know when he’ll be more familiar with the feeling?
When we’ve made it nine and ten is next.
Pressure? Don’t get me started on it. Real pressure isn’t making it ten. Real pressure is knowing that you’re outgunned, have dropped points in the first two weeks of the season and are desperately scrambling to stop someone else doing it. Real pressure is being told you’ve got no chance of it, that the opposition is too strong, having your management team compared to an atomic bombing the moment they were signed and then having to focus anyway.
Durrant hasn’t a clue what it’s like to carry a weight like that, for a whole season, and I mean that literally; right to the last game, and to the late stages of that game. It is phenomenally stressful, and in the end we came very close to not making it. The second last game, at Dunfermline, will live with most of us till the day we die; I had never felt a more stress-filled 90 minutes like it in my life, not until the following weekend.
He forgets that it’s Sevco, not Celtic, who has folded the hand at every big challenge they’ve faced; the Scottish Cup Final against Hibs, the chance to beat us at Ibrox in the campaign just past, the Scottish Cup semi where they convinced themselves they were the only team that could stop the treble … they failed on every one of them and a dozen other times.
We went through an entire domestic campaign unbeaten. Moussa Dembele’s first goal for the club was a last minute penalty at Celtic Park for Champions League qualification. Odsonne Edouard, at 19, came off the bench at Ibrox with us a man down to win us the three points … I could go on and on and on. Winning trophies is routine for this team.
Durrant clearly thinks the historical significance of it will matter, clearly ignoring that that pressure will cut both ways.
Sevco is already floundering under it; King has sacked four managers since he took over three years ago.
In the meantime, Celtic has thrived under it.
How can Durrant have missed that?
The historical significance of winning an Invincible treble clearly got past him. The back to back trebles – as the first Scottish club ever to do it – likewise. This team has been carrying, and making, history with them since Brendan first walked through the door.
That Sevco fans and Rangers ex-players are clinging to this particular straw shows just how far down the road towards conceding that we’re uncatchable that they really are. If they were confident about doing the job on the park they wouldn’t need to hope we stumble; their focus would be on overtaking us.
As Dave Campbell said in his excellent piece yesterday, they put some much time and effort into looking for proof that everything Celtic has built is going to come tumbling down.
And that’s all they’ve got left.