In my time I’ve heard a lot of mouth. I’ve seen some people who bumped their gums severely humiliated for doing so and whilst I can’t guarantee that those from Ibrox who have been indulging in it all week are going to get their comeuppance I feel very confident about it just the same.
The reason I feel confident is this; our players do more than just talk. The Ibrox players always seem to do this shortly before someone puts them in their place. They get in front of the media and a torrent of supremacist guff comes out.
This team has two trophies to boast about and one of them came in a season where we effectively collapsed. They left two domestic cups on the table in that same campaign. We’re champions and sitting on a nine point lead. This team. Made up of these players. There is not much doubt in the minds of neutrals – and indeed everyone else – who the better team and the bigger club is.
Ibrox fans must cringe when they hear this from their chronic underachievers and I know I would be lacerating our players if the roles were reversed and they were talking this way. The truth is that the present Ibrox team do more talking about achieving things than they actually achieve. This Celtic side, which never does that, has more to boast about.
The Mooch boasts about his time at Ibrox with Gerrard, but they have a single league title to their name (Gerrard’s name, he forgets that sometimes). Ange bettered that in his first campaign, and he’s on the brink of winning a second.
Yet nobody at Celtic struts or preens or gets lippy in front of the media. Nobody. Although I suspect a few of them – the manager included – may issue a statement or two on Sunday after the match if they’ve paraded the cup around Hampden.
But I would be glad if they didn’t, because the quality of this team isn’t just in its football but in its conduct and the way it presents itself to the world. Win, win well and then let the football public and the media talk about who the better club and the better team is … even our hacks will have to cover the truth when it so obvious.
And that’s the best answer we can give these clowns. To do our talking on the pitch and to walk that trophy round the park in front of our fans. To rub their faces in it in the only way that matters. With trophies, not trash-talking. Show them, and the world, that flapping your trap is easy. Winning things is the hard part, and that’s what we were built for.
Just hope Ange hasn’t over trained them this week, when we turned up at ibrox looked tired, always at least a couple of yards off the pace, and that’s all I can put it down to.
It’s now common knowledge that there was a virus in the Celtic Camp in the week heading up to the 2_2 game.
This Celtic team, both manager and players, have earned every right to talk about how good they are. They’ve dropped 5 points all season and have the opportunity to surpass Rodgers’ Invincibles team in terms of points. Yet they refuse to do so because they have too much class and dignity.
But part of me wishes they would make an exception for this weekend. Put out a message that they’re going to go out and win this game convincingly and that there’s nothing Sakala, Morelos, Kent, Lundstram, McGregor, or Beale can do about it. Can you imagine the meltdown over there after Celtic walk out with another trophy and a 3-0 or 4-1 beat down after such bravado? It’s one thing to win and win convincingly, and quite another to announce to the opposition (and the rest of the world) that there’s nothing anybody can do to prevent such an outcome and then go out and prove it on the day. If such a thing ever happened, careers would end over at Ibrox and popcorn sales would skyrocket as the rest of Scotland watches the aftermath unfold.
Ange’s Celtic always go for the jugular, Sunday will be no different, it doesn’t always turn out that way, but it is not for lack of effort or motivation on our part. A bit of luck can help things along but we don’t depend on it, we make our own luck.
COYBIG!