Sutton Is Right About One Thing. In Most Years, This Ibrox Side Wouldn’t Threaten Celtic.

This morning I put a piece up about the Rodgers situation and Chris Sutton’s assertion that the manager is not pulling his weight. I disagree with only that part of the article.

Sutton also asserted that the board and the players are not pulling theirs and I could not agree more. But he said one other thing that piqued my interest, and it was about our rivals.

Although he acknowledged that Clement has steadied the ship, he still doesn’t think that the Ibrox side is that good, or that it looks that good. I have to say, this is what more in the media should be pointing out, instead of talking about the Ibrox boss as if he was the Second Coming.

He is certainly not that. He certainly hasn’t got them playing Ange-ball stuff.

There is a lot of anxiety over our form.

But it should be noted that this anxiety so far is manifesting itself only because of our form. I know Kenny Miller and others have indulged themselves with the utter fantasy that we’re “panicking” because they are so brilliant, but in fact we’re not panicking and they are not brilliant.

We are concerned. About ourselves.

As we go into this weekend’s games we know that we have to get ourselves back on form, that we need to win and assure that we don’t fall behind prior to the big game at Celtic Park at the end of the month. If we go into that still on top, even if it’s with Ibrox’s game in hand, we know that a win gives us the lead again and assures that we maintain that crucial psychological pressure.

It had to be Sutton who pointed this stuff out.

Let’s be honest, no-one else amongst the hacks was going to do it. Because they are all enthralled by Clement just as they were with Van Bronckhorst and The Mooch, both of whom had decent enough form until the wheels came off and then they spiralled downward into a shambles.

That might take a while to happen over there.

It did when those other managers were in charge, but we know they haven’t built a top team, we know there are problems and issues behind the scenes, but that right now they have momentum. We’ll see how fragile it all was if they get to Celtic Park and we put a stop to it … provided we get our act together first.

And that’s the key here, not what they do but what we do.

Sutton is correct to point out our deficiencies, but he’s also right to point out theirs and nobody else in the mainstream media was going to do that. We cannot change what happens over there, only what we do. But we can make them respond to that, and see what they’ve got.

All Clement has seen since he got here was a Celtic side determined to shoot itself in the foot. Once we stop doing that, we’ll find out if he can handle the pressure.