The only two things certain in this life, according to the ancient wisdom, are “death and taxes.” Well we can now add a third to it; Ibrox players talking a good game after they’ve been beaten by Celtic for the umpteenth time. Notice that they do their talking off the pitch, rather than on it, and always, always, always it’s “wait until next time.”
And then next time comes, and they lose again. It doesn’t even take 24 hours before they are back to their stupid best, indulging in the big promises. “This defeat will only spur us on” or words to that effect. It usually does spur them on. To the next defeat.
Still, they keep on doing it. They keep on poking us with a stick, and on some level they must realise that they will be sorry for doing it. All it does is increase the pressure on them to get the results they have promised, and if they’re smart they’ll realise that they don’t deal well with that pressure at the best of times. It amazes me that they keep on making this mistake.
It also amazes me that their manager never gets a grip of it. If he was smart at all he would lead from the front and instil some message discipline in his those in his charge. It is beyond stupid that he does not learn from this. The players, yes, they all think they are better than they are, but he knows how important it is not to arm the opposition with more motivation to win … or he should know, but he appears as daft as they are when it comes to this stuff.
Amazingly, it’s the turn of Cyriel Dessers to start in on the rubbish, a guy who is so frustrating to his own fans that most of them want shot of him. He’s definitely the wrong person to be indulging in this sort of big talk, but that hasn’t stopped him.
“It’s been a heavy season, that’s for sure in all kinds of ways,” he said. “It’s easy to all go down now in energy and everyone needs to take a rest. But to see them celebrate today and 10 days ago gives me a lot of energy to go again this summer. It maybe seems weird to say now but I cannot wait for pre-season to start again and to do better than this season. I’m looking forward to that.”
So are we, believe it. We’re looking forward to seeing what kind of squad we put together in the coming summer and if the manager gets to decide that we’re really going to see a show in the coming campaign. Dessers may or may not be at Ibrox then.
And as if those comments are daft enough, he resorts to the most pitiful cliché of them all; the so-called absence of the gap, which we can all see clearly reflected in the league table, the last two titles, the trophy haul and the nine campaigns before that.
“If you look at the five games between the teams this season the gap is not that big,” he said, like a moron. “Everybody has seen that. But there is still something about these games. We didn’t win any of them this season.”
You actually lost four of them and drew one. This is bigger than just not winning any of them. If I were part of a team which had lost four out of five to its rivals, I would not take the slightest comfort from how apparently close some of them were – this is the same outright rubbish which is trotted out every single season now, and after win we get over them.
That this is a huge mistake for them to make, to convince themselves that there’s not really all that much in it, in spite of our having won seven of the last nine domestic trophies, is ridiculous. The derby record we have is outrageously good, and yet every time we secure a win we’re told that they are confident because they had a good 20 minutes towards the end.
You would think we’d be tired of this. I have to admit that it’s tiresome, but that’s not the same thing. I actually take deep satisfaction in their complete inability to shut up and show some humility and just get on with the job at hand. I take satisfaction in knowing that their arrogance really is boundless, that it convinces them that the hard work doesn’t need to be that hard at all, that they are within touching distance of finally stopping the Celtic juggernaut.
As long as they think this way, the gap will continue to exist and even grow. What part of four wins out of five and the league and cup double and the eight points that separate us in the league are they not quite grasping? All of it, I think.
They simply cannot accept what it means, any of it, and this permeates the whole club from the top down. There is no real introspection … and thus no way to draw the right conclusions from how this season has panned out.
This is better than we could have hope for. It’s perfect.
The ref won the game for Celtic by not allowing play to continue until they scored or got their penalty, so you can understand their frustration.
They always do. And when were up by three goals end ex, bang on the 90. And we are looking for more goals as per.