How Long Can Some People Kid Themselves On About The Strength Of This Celtic Side?

The delusion goes on.

Yesterday, in the aftermath of the game, Ibrox fans were on their forums telling each other how poor we looked. Were they watching a different team than I was? We were excellent for large parts of that game yesterday, and only the finishing was missing.

Had we got that right, we would have racked up the cricket score.

At the start of last season, when the team was still being assembled and the whole country wondered what shape it would take, it was perfectly feasible for the sneering halfwits of the media and their support to believe whatever they wanted.

But the evidence is in. We are champions, still on an outstanding unbeaten run. How the Hell do these clowns think that happened? That run included beating them home and away in the league. They are deluded to believe that this is not a good team.

Ange was angry yesterday. Angry, after a win that was as routine and simple as you could hope for. Their own side toiled against Livingston and their manager thought they were excellent, and so did many of their own fans. Yet Ange was not impressed because he knows that we’ve got even better in our locker, and he’s determined to get it out.

The stupid thing about their delusion is that it hinders rather than helps them. If Martindale’s team had shown a bit more guile on Saturday they might have dropped their first points of the season; even they have to recognise – as we do – that unless other sides can get results against us that we’re going to be in very good shape when we play them.

They aren’t the only ones who believe this, either.

This morning, I read Keith Jackson’s idiotic pro-Ibrox puff-piece this morning; he thinks our title win last season had nothing to do with the number of games we won and the long unbeaten run … he thinks it happened because Ibrox underestimated Ange and they took their eyes of the ball. What a gross insult that is to everyone at our club.

But that’s an insult I can live with, because it reeks of arrogance and fear. The media most certainly did underestimate our manager, and they still can’t bring themselves to admit that they were wrong. What Jackson is saying is that they only slightly underestimated him; he was better than they thought but on his own not quite good enough.

It took an Ibrox collapse to make him into a contender.

This is stupidity on a colossal scale, of course, and the proof that these people still haven’t grasped how good we’ve become, or that we deserve to be taken seriously. They continue to wait for us to fall apart, for the coach and four to turn into the pumpkin and mice … and so they continue to insult us and to sell us short.

But because they also fail to grasp the seriousness of their own position, they are going to make mistakes. Ange will too, but not as many as not this serious. Apart from the strength of this squad, and this team – and it is significant – that’s why we’ll win this.