As the Ibrox clown-car fills up with more of their Peepul making dire predictions and talking the worst kind of nonsense about how they are the better team – Niko Katic is the latest; do any of you even remember him? – Cameron Carter Vickers showed the class and the quality today, and the dignity in front of the media, Celtic is famous for.
This week has been a cacophony of noise from across the city, as the Ibrox club and its hangers on have made big predictions. Predictions are fine. Their fans and media cheerleaders see the record under The Mooch and reckon they are unbeatable. But what’s not on is the utter disrespect they’ve shown our club at the same time.
They are better than us? Really? The reigning champions currently sitting with a nine point lead? By what logic? And “a better club” Sakala thinks? One that crawled out of the grave of one that died in enmeshed in fraud and disgrace and which itself shamelessly appropriates the parts of that club which suit it and throws overboard those which don’t?
Carter Vickers didn’t indulge the media when they tried to get him to comment on that. He didn’t even do the old “we’ll pin it up on the dressing room wall” rot which usually accompanies these things. Everyone at Celtic is so on-point right now, so totally disciplined and focussed on what matters. He was no exception.
“For me, I’ve got no problem with it. Every professional sportsman has to have some level of self-belief to get to where they are,” Carter Vickers said, ignoring the premise of the question which was about the ‘other mob’ comment. He continued. “For me, it’s a normal comment for a professional sportsman to make.”
Which he knows isn’t quite what he was being asked about, but the message discipline at Celtic is nearly perfect at the moment, and I’ve never been so impressed by it.
It is always satisfying to beat your rivals, this we know. But this will be an especially satisfying weekend if we show up for business and get this job done. It is imperative that we keep our heads and don’t do anything rash, that we keep an eye on the officials, above all.
It is imperative that we win after the week we’ve had, a week in which the nonsense and the Ibrox trash-talk have come at us hard, every single day. The latest manifestation of it is BBC Sport Scotland’s decision to do a full interview with Beale, as if he’s the new Chosen One. We’ll see how long that lasts. We’ll see if it lasts past the weekend.
The other thing he said that impressed me which you didn’t quote was something to the effect that League table and recent head to head results don’t mean anything. This is a one-off game in a cup competition, and anything can happen.
This is absolutely the right mentality to have. One game at a time, and the only game that matters is the next one. Rinse and repeat. After a few more months of that there will be further additions to the trophy cabinet.
CCV has treated Sakala’s comments with a bit of objectivity and decided it is of no real consequence to anyone. In fact he is more or less saying he is just an excitable young guy just geeing himself up with a bit of self bravado. I like CCV’s mature attitude, he is dismissing Sakala’s small talk it in a nice roundabout way. Sakala will grow up one of these days and also learn the error of his ways…… the hard way.
Possibly they now have some belief because they got a 2-2 draw against the Champions at lbrox with a home crowd and virtually no away support. What they don’t know is, the Celtic camp had a virus in the week of the run up to that game. But it wasn’t mentioned by Ange, as he doesn’t use excuses. I,ve heard a lot of sevco and Celtic fans for that matter saying it’s going to be a close game. I watched the sevco/Aberdeen game and they were atrocious. They can’t hang on to the ball. Their passing is woeful. They get help with penalties and red cards. They’ve been hanging onto the tailcoats of Celtic with a lot of help from the referees and VAR. Come sunday, they are going to get what’s coming to them….. a heavy, heavy defeat. Remember the Liverpool game. They got found out. They’re going to get found out on sunday as well.
They might win on Sunday after all its football..just ask the bookies but if we play like we can it should b a comfortable win for celtic
Carter-Vickers and Ange Postecoglou are doing what we should all be doing and that’s nothing. Let Celtic do the talking on Sunday afternoon. We don’t need to get involved with any small talk, leave that to them. Beating them on Sunday and not making a big deal about it makes a bigger statement and that’ll really get to this guy Beale. The girls team beat them 3-0 on Friday night. That’s a great omen, I’m sure it’s gonna be more of the same on Sunday. Come on the HOOPS