Celtic’s Enemies Are Having A Fine Old Time Just Now. Only We Can Shut Them Up.

Well, that was a dreadful week, right?

Every bit as bad as we all thought that it might be, every bit as grim as was foretold from full time against Hearts. That was long and it was miserable and full of introspection and anger.

That was one of the worst weeks I can remember as a Celtic fan in a long, long time. Today we have a chance to put it in the rear-view mirror.

And we need to. Because any more of this and the title starts slipping away. We need to get our momentum back, because when we do I am convinced we will pull ahead.

This has been a good week for the club’s many enemies.

Oh wow, have they had a field day.

Sniggering and sneering and casting doubts on every element of the club. They were waiting for this of course, waiting for the first sign that things at Celtic might not be great. Because even when we were winning, even when we’d opened up that seven-point lead, they were talking as though we were in crisis already.

Some of them can’t wait to get the old broken badge graphics up.

We have to stop doing the work of these people for them.

We need to halt this run of bad form and hit our stride again.

I would not have wanted to face Livingston this weekend, a team which already plays defensive football against us, but it might be the best thing to happen to us. If we can put three points on the board and score a few we switch the pressure across the city. They have a tougher game than us this weekend; I think we’ll both win but it’s certainly crucial we do.

Not only do I want the points, not only do I want the big performance, but I want to shut these people up.

I want to turn down the volume on their gloating, and set us up for the next game on the calendar and then at the end of the month wipe the smirks from the faces of every single one of the people who have spent the last week laughing at us.

Three points today, Celtic. Nothing less.

We need to stop this talk of crisis in its tracks. We’ve lost our way. All that matters is that we find it again. We have some players back; a fully fit Maeda could make a big difference. The manager needs it, the team needs it, the fans certainly need it and today we’ll have a rocking Celtic Park to cheer the players on.

Do not mess this up Celtic, do not do more damage to this campaign. Our enemies would love nothing more, and I don’t want to be feeling this way all the way to next weekend; I want us going into that still top. Because then we can make sure we stay there.

We did this to ourselves, folks. Clement’s team haven’t won five games in a row yet, these wounds of ours are entirely self-inflicted. He’s dropped points in the league already. Some of their wins have been highly dependent on that “pattern of assistance.”

He’s drawn two of his European games, against sub-par opponents.

This guy is not the swaggering conqueror people the hacks would have you believe.

Let me repeat; we did this to ourselves, and only we can get us out of it. It’s down to the players at this club to give themselves a shake, to the manager to show some imagination and justify that reputation he has, and to the fans to get behind them.

We cannot rely on other clubs to do this for us. Motherwell, even if they could get something, might not be allowed to, with the officials on the case and doing everything they can to smooth the path for this guy and his club. We could be further ahead if we’d keep our cool and played our own football … instead we have allowed ourselves to get in this mess.

Well, that must end today. We can’t affect what others do directly, but we can put the pressure on them if we show that we’re back. A win will do me today. Any kind of win.

But if we show up and turn it on, if we play them off the park, if we get the result and it’s comfortable … yeah, that would send the right message to the rest … and remind these people that this team wins, that’s what it was built for, and that if we hit form they’ll be laughing on the other side of their face.