It Is Celtic Who Have Been “Written Off” This Season, Again And Again And Again.

I had to laugh at some of the chatter out of Ibrox over the last couple of days.

I’ve already covered some of what Tavernier had to say, and I have laughed in private over the comments from Butland where he said that it was a “reset” and that he was quite happy with that; those comments were echoed by the increasingly deluded manager.

But it was something else from Butland and his boss that really made me laugh; this assertion that their team has been written off several times this season.

In fact, there was just one moment in this title race where that might – just might – have been true, and it wasn’t true then either. It was when they were seven points behind, and even then, their media acolytes refused to concede the title and for sure nobody at Celtic Park was breaking out the champagne.

The truth is, from the moment Clement slipped through the front door of Ibrox he has been the darling of the media and his team has been getting nothing – nothing – but positive reportage.

Even after we had easily beaten them at Celtic Park at the turn of the year this guy was still being hailed as some kind of genius.

They made excuses for him that day. They are still making excuses for him, even better ones than he’s making for himself … which is saying something.

His own are astounding.

The match at the weekend was nothing more than “an off day.”

The draw against us was a poor half of football where they were spellbindingly brilliant in the other half. Even if that was true (which it certainly is not), Rodgers doesn’t accept it when Celtic players turn up for 45 minutes. So why does this guy?

And just to prove that not all of our journalists are utter goons, the one who was questioning him on this didn’t let him off the hook. When he pointed out that they’ve also lost to Motherwell in the same short space of time, did you see what Manneken Piss said to that?

“Motherwell was a freak accident, we could have won 6-1, we had a lot of chances but it wasn’t our lucky day.”

Apart from the fact they couldn’t have won 6-1 as Motherwell scored twice that day, he is blowing that result off as if it was nothing. A freak accident? Followed by a complete collapse in half the game against us? Combined with “an off day.”

That is utter nonsense, of course, and a Celtic manager would be crucified for talking this kind of rubbish in front of the media.

But these are the people who swallowed he and Butland’s bizarre assertion that they have been “written off” time and time again.

Nobody in the press corps even appears to have noticed that the manager and his player spoke almost identical language on that. So they have co-ordinated that response, it isn’t simply something arrived at by the manager and the player separately; this is the “party line” out of Ibrox now.

“We’ve been written off before so we’re not worried.”

You have to wonder about that, and what it means. How many of them are actually confident, and how many of them are actually dreading the next month or so? If they are all following the “line to take” there’s no way of knowing who is really up for the fight.

Still, it’s doubtful that any of them believe what they are saying, whether they have confidence in the title race or not. They have to know that this guy has had the longest period of sustained good press of any manager in the recent history of the game here.

It is, in fact, Rodgers and Celtic who have been written off here, fairly constantly, all season long.

Even when our lead was seven points, they were focussed on our European displays rather than our games at home. Before the campaign had even kicked off, we were being told that this was a new version of the Ibrox club, and – hahahaha – The Mooch was the best manager he had ever faced, the guy who was going to pull him off the perch.

Rodgers has been doubted and smeared and slagged at every stage. One desperate hack – Keevins, of course it was Keevins – has confidently predicted that he will not be the Celtic boss next season, although he faces virtually no major threat and has largely turned around his critics.

The mentality of our players has been questioned, although this is basically the core group which won a treble last season and which has refused to die or to quit.

This team of ours, and this manager, they deserve enormous praise.

Hell, a lot of our own fans wrote these guys off.

I had moments of the deepest doubt myself, and whilst I never gave up completely there were low moments when I really did not see where the comeback was coming from.

Losing twice in December was catastrophic. The draw against Aberdeen in February was a nightmarish result … I will talk about Hearts later. That’s different.

But this team has refused to give up, which is why we have this in our hands going into this last part of the campaign. And the thing is, nobody at Celtic Park thinks this is over yet … so once again, who exactly is this who is writing the Ibrox club off?

This is a figment of their own imagination … on the surface at least. I wonder, however, if what they are really doing is sending a message to some inside their own walls?

Cause if they are, then this really is all over.