It is time for everyone at Celtic to step up their game. Indeed, it is past time for that.
There are people at our club who have, as the fan banner says, been asleep at the wheel for much of the season so far.
Much of the campaign has already been left behind us, in flaming wreckage.
But if people can get their acts together we might yet pull it out of the fire.
Whatever the Hell has been going at our club for the past few months, it’s time it was all put to bed.
If Lennon is going to have until after the Ibrox game to get it together then so be it.
But he needs to put together a straight run of wins between now and then, and then go there and win too.
We also need to hope for the odd favour from elsewhere.
And it’s here that things have suddenly become interesting, in light of last night’s events in Paisley.
If you saw Boyd’s face last night, heard Gerrard’s tiptoed press conference or looked on their forums today your nose will begin twitching at once at the distinct whiff of fear.
It is all over them. If it gets into their team it will be very hard for them to get rid of it.
The Ibrox club had built a lead over us. There is no pressure involved in that when you see the other team and they look like they are in disarray. There’s no pressure involved when you are playing games on weekends where the opposition are not.
On top of that, there are two types of pressure; there’s the pressure of a team who is chasing and the pressure of one being chased. I have always believed it is harder to be the leader than the one who’s playing catch up, and the fear factor only makes this worse for them.
They have just lost in a trophy they must have thought they had one hand on. That sews doubt. That doubt will multiply the fear. They will wonder if they really are good enough to win things. That will seep into their game. The lead actually only increases the fear; what if instead of making further ground you start to lose it? The fear that they blow this lead can definitely lead to them doing so … professional sport is full of examples of this.
Fear is poison for anyone in sport, and it will be coursing through Ibrox today.
After a spell of not winning things you start to wonder if you ever will again, and the longer that run goes on the longer it is likely to last.
The spell is only broken when you finally get your hands on silverware, and inside their dressing room they must feel miles from that.
All we have to do to ratchet that pressure and that fear up to the breaking point is to start winning again.
Look, we know this team is capable of that.
We know they are capable of putting together an extended run.
They know it at Ibrox too, which is why they will have watched our last two wins with concern, and on top of that they’ll know the lift the whole club will get if we win that Scottish Cup at the weekend and close the book on the Quadruple Treble.
There is more than a little light here.
Everyone at Ibrox is sweating scared. Gerrard was dying to throw his players into the fire last night, but he was too afraid of the negative effects. They have blown what looked like a sure thing, and there is nothing more confidence sapping. They will be looking at their remaining fixtures this month with nerve shredding trepidation, knowing full well that with Celtic coming to town in January that they can’t afford to give us the slightest encouragement.
All we have to do is keep winning.
Lennon and the players, it is over to you.
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