Immediately following the League Cup Final, a lot of people around the margins at Celtic Park started to talk about trebles. Around the margins, that kind of talk is safe and clean.
But the closer you get to the centre of the operation, the less tolerance there is for it.
The discipline at Celtic is astonishing, and all of it stems from the man at the top. Not only did he not personally make a big thing of the treble bid but he forbade any discussion of it in the dressing room, and around the playing squad. One game at a time has been his focus and so that has been our focus. The whole club has fallen into line in an amazing way.
At Ibrox you see none of that. Instead there is a complete lack of message discipline which borders on the ludicrous. Every other day there seems to be someone in that dressing room talking to the press about what they’ll do to us “this time” and how we’ll see the real thing as if they were all on holiday and not available for work the last twice.
The disrespect for other clubs starts at the top. The disdain for Celtic’s achievements and the failure to give us credit for any of them starts at the top. It leads to our coaches getting glassed and assaulted, and that’s on the serious side of it … but it also leads to people inside Ibrox over-promising and under-delivering.
This morning, John Lundstram is all over the media giving it mouth.
If that club had a bit of sense, if The Mooch had the least instinct for self-preservation, he would get the whole team together in the dressing room or on the training ground and he would do what I presume Ange has already done with this team and he’d tell them “no more of this. You either do your talking on the pitch or you keep it shut.” Because isn’t it just embarrassing now?
So many of them will have egg on their faces that Kirk Broadfoot will never have to worry about his again because there won’t be enough to go round. This is the second time Lundstram has done this too, in the same way as it was Tavernier’s second time … so it’s not as if the manager over there doesn’t know who the players most likely to be doing this are.
But he allows it. He allows them to mouth off and make big statements, and that promotes a culture within the club of arrogance and a little bit of complacency.
They really do – and I genuinely believe this now – they really do think that all they need to do is turn up and they’ll expect to win. We’re not a factor because he has convinced them we’re just lucky anyway.
And this is ultimately what is going to cost them, because we are much more focussed and driven and determined and we have that discipline which they lack. We do our talking where it matters.
If they are too stupid to do the same Hell mend them.
Stupid is as stupid does..such is the Hun life
ALL DECENT HUMANS GET A BIT OF LUCK AT TIMES,BUT WE AT CELTIC HAVE ALL THE LUCK,AS ROD SAYS SOME GUYS HAVE ALL THE LUCK,IF YOU THINK EVIL YOU GET EVIL!!!!!!!!
With the semi-final getting closer they are shitting themselves and doing their best to cover up their fears with bravado talk. It will be non stop much of the same until we abruptly stop it in two weeks time. Let them fkn squeal.
Right to the point. If only this concerned just football, but the toleration of threats of ‘social unrest’, the escorting of black-clad fascist acolytes, cyber-terrorism and the trashing of George Square also stem from the activity/inactivity of those responsible for peace on Scottish streets.