Today Was Celtic’s 18th Game Played After Our Rivals. How Did That Happen?

People inside Celtic may keep their counsel on most things but there are issues on which they are very clear where they stand, and the things that concern us often concern them too with the only the difference that you very rarely will hear about that from the club directly. Which isn’t to say that questions are not being asked behind the scenes.

One of those issues broke into the public light last week when Chris Sutton brought it up, in his latest column. We’ve talked about this ourselves, but to see it featured in a mainstream publication, albeit by one of our own guyst was something of a surprise, although why it should be I don’t know, because you have to be blind not to have spotted it even if it took big Chris to do the sums.

“By my counting,” he wrote, “this weekend will be the 18th time that Celtic have played after (the Ibrox club.) It’s far from easy when you are the (team) which has to constantly respond to results.”

18 times folks. One more time this season and that will be half a campaign … and when you consider that we play half of our leagues games at home you need to ponder that statistic properly. This is not simply explained away by televised games, and it’s not even completely explained away by UEFA’s scheduling of Champions League games.

Half a season of playing after they’ve already played. If we were the sort of team to waver under pressure that could have been the difference between a winning campaign and finishing second. Don’t kid yourself that this stuff doesn’t matter … that is so slanted as to be ridiculous and Sutton is definitely not the only person outside Celtic social media who sees what this is.

Believe me, people inside the club had spotted it as well. Because it stands out a country mile and it’s way too obvious to ignore. I don’t know if anyone inside the club is making noise about this behind the scenes but I would not bet against it.

I mean, should we add it to the list of bizarre anomalies which the game here has to tolerate, such as those incredible, almost mind-bending Ibrox penalty stats? That, too, is dismissed as just one of those weird things which happens sometimes.

Celtic would be mad not to be raising this somewhere, with someone … and I am sure that we will be. Not that it’s ultimately made a lot of difference … but it’s another of those things we cannot just allow to go on because in another campaign that could have been critical.