Yesterday Celtic Were Simply Poor. Our Rivals Are The Ones Collapsing Under Pressure.

Whatever else yesterday was about, that result had nothing to do with us feeling the strain of being top of the league.

One hack suggested that today.

I suggest he goes for a lie-down because the brief appearance of the sun has been getting to him.

Celtic did not drop points yesterday because of pressure. We dropped them because we simply weren’t good enough on the day.

The team performance was flat. We barely tested their keeper. But we did not look nervous or bereft of confidence, just lacking a wee spark of imagination, the sort that would have secured us the three points comfortably.

We’ve dropped a gear in the last few weeks, whether that’s letting opposition sides into games or losing goals we haven’t ordinarily been losing. But it’s as if players now think they just need to show up to win.

It’s more like complacency than cracking under the strain.

This teams knows about pressure. Pressure is knowing you have to win every week to keep up in the title race and being able to do it anyway. Pressure is knowing that when the opposition does have a rare slip that you must take advantage … and we have.

If you want to know who’s obviously cracking under pressure, look across the city.

Since we went top by beating them at Celtic Park they have been the side playing catch-up.

And in the process they have dropped points another twice.

So why is it Celtic getting scrutiny for how we’re coping with pressure?

Surely it is obvious – and of course it obvious, even to our desperate hacks – that we’ve coped well with it whilst the weight is crushing the club across the road.

One of the worst things about last season is that we never got to a place, at any point, where we could put them under pressure.

Perhaps the reason Ibrox gets results in Europe is that there are low expectations on the players in that arena; there they can play without the suffocating fear which is all around them in domestic football, where the demands are higher.

As I’ve said previously, the one European tie this season for them which had genuine pressure attached to it was the one against Malmo and they couldn’t even win that when they were facing ten men at home. They lost both legs.

The evidence for our ability to cope with pressure is everywhere.

Not only did we claw back a six-point gap to sit three ahead, but we won the League Cup after coming back from a goal down.

How is that not proof of an ability to handle the high wire?

Ibrox is in the midst of a profound domestic form crisis; that’s what it would be getting called at Celtic, and we all know this well. The press would not be dancing around the use of that word, they would have it in every report and headline.

Tavernier says they don’t bother with our results; what does it matter whether they do or not?

They know the situation, they know they have to keep winning, and they aren’t able to get it done.

That’s why we’re still three in front and there are now just ten games to go.