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The Buzzards Are Hovering Over Celtic. But They’ll Need To Seek Their Meal Elsewhere.

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Isn’t it fascinating how they come up when they think there’s dinner to be hand?

Ever seen fish gathering near the surface of the water because the flies have started to alight on the surface?

Ever seen buzzards circling overhead as an animal pulls itself towards a final resting place? They do it because it’s feeding time, or they think it is.

We’re two games into the league campaign. Two.

We’ve gotten four points from the matches.

But you’d think we’d lost both of them.

As I wrote recently, we did lose the first two fixtures in the Rangers ten in a row campaign, and still came back to win on the final day.

How many times have we heard that a corner has been turned here? That a decisive blow has been struck against us? Loads now, right? How many times has this team bucked expectations, and not so much rose against them but shattered them completely?

I’ll write, tomorrow, about what our response is likely to be on the pitch … but for now I find it just fascinating how much our critics and rivals have forgotten.

I knew there would be a reaction to this the first time we dropped points. Not the first time either side dropped points, just us.

I knew the press would go halfway nuts. I knew they’d focus on certain players and pour pressure on them. Christopher Jullien was dreadful yesterday, but he has been at Parkhead for more than a year and I can count those games on one hand.

He did not become a bad player overnight.

He has a slow start to the last campaign, as Lennon has pointed out, but he grew into the role.

I have no doubt that he will be a massive player for us in this season too. He and Ajer held off Lazio last season.

They were good enough to play in the best defensive side in the league. I have no fears about them.

The critics enjoy days like yesterday, as they scan the horizon for proof that we are on the slide.

We have a dreadful record at that ground, on that dreadful pitch, and whilst I refuse to accept that as an excuse the result yesterday was not a surprise even if the performance was more stinking than most of us would accept.

This season is going to be a long slog. Neither ourselves nor any of our rivals were going to go through it without bad weekends, or without finding ourselves chasing. There will be twists and turns, but it’s a marathon and not a sprint.

The real shape of the race isn’t going to be evident for months to come, and when it comes we’re going to be out in front.

The vultures and the other scavengers ought to be gathering elsewhere.

There are no meals to be had at Celtic Park.

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Which word is the media resistent to using about the events of 2012?

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