The Ibrox websites are obsessed with the idea that everything that Celtic do revolves around them.
When Brendan left, he did so because “Gerrard had his number.”
When Tierney left last week he was “bailing out” before they took our title.
When we were looking for a new manager we weren’t going to appoint Lennon because “he can’t match Gerrard” and when we hired him they changed tack and said we needed a “real Celtic man” to sell season tickets for a lost cause.
And the thing is, I really do reckon they believe this guff.
Of course, it doesn’t help when we have some of the hacks – such as Alan Brazil – saying that the Ibrox club will dictate our transfer policy.
His contention that we’d have sold Callum McGregor except that we’re worried about the “challenge” out of Ibrox is barking.
It is just one example of the febrile nonsense that is out there.
But nowhere is this more obvious than on their websites, where last week they were handing us severe “psychological blows” with the signing of Brandon Barker and where this week the general consensus is that we’re “running scared” because they’ve beaten Hibs at home.
Have they really failed to notice that we’ve scored twelve goals in two games? That we’ve won four out of five European games so far? That we’re the treble holders and we’ve spent £12 million on the squad, which is about three times what they have?
We have a major sum sitting in the bank right now, which equips us to go above and beyond in bringing in new players and overhauling the squad further. And we still have a club that is professionally run and where everyone is on their game right now.
They put such faith in King, although he’s sacked three managers before Gerrard. On top of that, the greatest spell of dominance in the history of Scottish football – at Celtic – just so happens to have coincided with his tenure at Ibrox. He has tied himself in knots over Sports Direct and seems not to know how to get out of that hole.
In the meantime, Lawwell played his latest poker hand, with Arsenal, to the final day and our club took every penny of the £25 million we wanted. That money will be available to the manager, and if he spends it and gets who he wants we’ll put their lights out.
And if it isn’t the fans talking this trash it’s the players.
As I’ve said before, our club never wastes it time on all this noise, all this racket, all this posturing for the sake of it.
We play it cool and calm. We concentrate on ourselves and never bother with what happens over the city.
Our professionalism is total … it’s one game at a time, and the next one isn’t against them but against the Romanians tomorrow.
And that’s where our focus is, and where it belongs.
Running scared of Ibrox? Man oh man, I can’t wait until we roll in there at the start of next month. Far from worrying about, when I think about it at all it’s with great anticipation and I’m sure everyone at Celtic Park feels exactly the same way.