Celtic Now Enters The Toughest Bit Of The Season. Do Well And We Claim The Prize.

Last season, the fixture list was so difficult for Celtic and slanted in Ibrox’s favour that I wrote a couple of pieces on how unbelievable it was.

This season the fixture list fell perfectly for us instead.

The first third of the season – Scotland’s system splits the season into four but the fourth bit isn’t quite a quarter – sees us play all the top teams at home, as does the final third … we’re in the zone now where the tough away games are.

The last quarter of the season might well see us play an extra home game against a top six team, depending on who that comes down to.

But it will not be as difficult as the phase we’re about to enter, with games at – in order – Pittodrie, Easter Road, Ibrox and Dundee Utd before January ends. In March we’re at St Johnstone and St Mirren, the only ground we’ve lost at.

Three of those games, Aberdeen, Hibs and Ibrox, are in the next three weeks. That’s our domestic league campaign right there. Come out of those with our nine-point lead, or greater, and there’s really not much to fear for the rest of the season.

We aren’t going to write off the other clubs, of course not, and certainly not the rest of the away games. But at home we’re imperious. Away from home we’re becoming that way. Last season we got the fixture list from hell and we cruised through it, putting together our long unbeaten run on the back of a critical first away win in months.

We have had a superb season so far, and we’re now entering the crucial period where we can seal the deal. This team must be clinical and it must be ruthless. It showed no mercy in the first part of this campaign and it should show no mercy here.

Our rivals are down and we have the boot on their neck. Press hard on it.

Put them away, and wrap this thing up and put a ribbon on it.

A championship ribbon.