GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - MAY 10: A general view inside the stadium as the fans of Celtic display a tifo which reads 'we'll fight it out until the end', seen during the William Hill Premiership match between Celtic and Rangers at Celtic Park on May 10, 2026 in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
I have listened to them all season long.
The smug tones. The rolled eyes. The little digs dressed up as “analysis.” Every time Celtic faced a difficult spell, the same voices appeared from the shadows like carrion crows circling above Paradise, desperate to tell us the sky was falling.
And now? Wrong. Wrong. Wrong again.
Ewen Cameron, with his endless anti-Celtic predictions. Chris Sutton, and this one hurt me because how could you, Chris, saying Celtic would not win a single post-split game? Not one. Really? Celtic? This Celtic side? The same team forged in pressure and sharpened in fire?
Three out of three so far. Three victories. Three statements.
Then there was Hugh Keevins with his dramatic “zero per cent chance” nonsense. Zero per cent? Celtic? The club that has dragged itself through storms, survived chaos, rebuilt itself again and again, and still rises above Scottish football like a great green mountain?
Aye, alright Hugh. I can almost hear the silence now. Beautiful silence. Make it last. Make it permanent. You always talk about accountability, so what say you don’t bother us with any more of your smelly pish?
Because this is what so many people fail to understand about Celtic. You can criticise us. You can doubt us. You can sneer at us and predict our collapse every other week. But Celtic do not die quietly. Celtic has awakened at just the right time. And when Celtic awaken, the whole of Scotland feels it.
I felt it in my bones weeks ago. The Ginger Witch instincts were already whispering to me that this team still had that fire burning beneath the surface. I could sense it. You could see it in the eyes of the players. That stubborn hunger. That refusal to surrender. While pundits were writing obituaries for our season, Celtic were sharpening the blade in silence.
That is the thing about champions. Real champions do not panic when the noise grows loud around them. They narrow their eyes. They grit their teeth. Then they answer on the pitch. That is exactly what Celtic have done.
The post-split fixtures were supposed to destroy us, according to the experts. Instead, Celtic marched straight through the first three of them like warriors returning from battle. Every victory has felt personal. Every goal has felt like a message. Every roar from the stands has sounded like thunder rolling across Glasgow.
And I will say this loudly: how could anybody ever doubt Celtic winning a fifth title in a row? Five in a row is not just another trophy. It is legacy. It is dominance. It is psychological warfare against every rival who convinced themselves our era was ending. They prayed for decline. They begged for weakness. They built fantasy stories about Celtic crumbling.
Instead, they might be watching Celtic rise again.
I will absolutely laugh if we seal that fifth title in a row.
Not out of cruelty, although maybe just a wee bit, but because the arrogance of some of these predictions has been astonishing. The certainty. The confidence. The desperation to speak Celtic failure into existence.
Every single week, Celtic answer back with football. That is the delicious part. Not tweets. Not headlines. Not radio phone-ins. Football. Wins. Goals. Pressure. Relentlessness.
There is something almost mystical about Celtic when the doubters gather. The club seems to feed on disrespect. The more they mock us, the stronger we become. I genuinely believe that. Celtic carry something ancient within them. A spirit. A defiance. A roaring force passed down from generation to generation of supporters who refuse to bow their heads.
You can feel it inside Celtic Park when the crowd believes. It becomes something beyond football. Right now, that belief is alive again.
I think some pundits forget what Celtic supporters are.
We are not fragile. We are not fair-weather. We have seen triumph and heartbreak, and we still return every single week with scarves raised high. So, when people outside the club predict doom, sometimes it only strengthens the siege mentality. Us against them. That old feeling. The dangerous feeling.
When Celtic get that feeling, they become terrifying.
I also think certain voices in Scottish football simply cannot handle prolonged Celtic dominance. They grow exhausted by it. They are desperate for a new story. Desperate for Celtic to stumble so they can announce “the end of an era.”
But eras at Celtic do not end because a pundit wishes it. They end when Celtic themselves stop fighting. This team has not stopped fighting. Not even close.
You can see leaders emerging again. You can see confidence returning. You can see that hunger in the supporters too. The noise around the club now feels different. Stronger. Sharper. More alive.
If Celtic secure that fifth title in a row, I hope every single doubter is at Parkhead and has to sit there and watch the celebrations unfold in glorious green and white detail. I hope they hear the singing. I hope they see the joy. I hope they feel the thunder of Celtic proving them wrong yet again.
Because they never learn. Never.
They doubt Celtic every time adversity appears, and every time this club rises like an immortal giant from the ashes. That is why Celtic are different. That is why this club is eternal to so many of us. The soul of Celtic cannot be measured by statistics or lazy predictions from pundits chasing headlines.
It is something deeper than that.
Something fierce. Something untameable.
And if that fifth title arrives, oh, I will laugh.
I absolutely will. I will think about every smug prediction, every dismissive comment, every “zero per cent chance” quote, and I will laugh into the skies above Paradise while Celtic stand once again as champions of Scotland.
Choose The CelticBlog as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.
The main writer of this blog was a big doubter, MON got criticised, the usual pile on to Liam Scales and McCowan occured when they needed our backing and confidence to try to get this thing over the line. Yet this site criticises others aplenty
I think we have all been very critical of our team at times – i know I have- and its because we have been given players who quite honestly are not good enough by the board because of christ who knows what reasons!!!!
With a proper team, we would have won this league months ago .
All the neutrals and halfwits want hearts to win for a change- real reason is they dont like Celtic and they are bored of Celtic winning all the time.
Well who cares what they think
We want Celtic to win the league every year and as soon as possible but what we also want is for our team to be able to compete in Europe properly and not to be thrashed every season – that is on the board – they can fix this by one of two ways – either they all disappear or they recruit a top notch manager and top notch players
I’ll be honest Paulina – I was a doubter.. Still am as we’ve won fuck all yet, far from it…
I think I had good reason to be as well…
Anyway – Lets see where we are in 27 hours time !
We are still pretty poor and without Diazen coming to life and a couple of injuries back Hearts would’ve won it by now.
The vast majority of Celtic fans didn’t think this team capable of keeping us in it so far which includes everyone I know.
40 goals less than last season etcetera the numbers told us Celtic didn’t have what it takes but Diazen has awoken. And he is single-handedly keeping us in this : 6 goals in the last 4 games compared to 9 for the rest of the entire season of 59 games !!!
Obviously this is all premature as we haven’t won anything yet but if we do I’ll tip my hat to you for going against the data and the tide.
This season’s end has echoes of ’86 all over it. Our penultimate match in the league in ’86 needed a victory to force Hearts into avoiding defeat in their final game and for us to win ours – and that 2nd from last match for us was a midweeker versus Motherwell away. McClair scored twice in a 0-2 victory to Celtic, once from the penalty spot.
That forced Hearts to hold their nerve in their last match and just avoid defeat (and we had to win ours by at least 3 goals) and those of us old enough to remember know how that ended with Dundee supersub Albert Kidd scoring twice with just 7 minutes of the season to go and cementing 2nd place for the diet huns, and the Hoops – or Mint Greens as we were wearing that famous CR SMITH away shirt that same day – were cruising 5-0 at Love St so we wrapped it up in the same manner we’ll likely have to this season, 40 years later.
If history repeats itself and we seal a victory in this season’s penultimate match at Fir Park, and Hearts do the same against Falkirk at home, we force them to avoid defeat in their last match in order for them to win the league and for us to win ours. Of course the top 2 teams in Scotland face each other at Celtic Park in front of 60,000 Tims so the balance of favourites going into a scenario where it once again goes down to the wire tips heavily in our favour this time, but I’ll take an 83rd minute couple of Heart-breakers by any Hoops player or even 2 OG’s or Sinisalo banging them in to lift the title trophy again, no questions asked! That goes for the match v Motherwell too, I don’t care, just win Celtic!! I’m confident we will.
There were a total of 36 matches played in season 1985-86 and we’re at 36 played right now. Goals For 67 and Goals Against 38 in both seasons 40 years apart!!
There are other parallels with that ’86 season. Other than us winning the league by a whisker that was a very poor season for us by our standards with the media writing off our chances of ending up champions half way through the season – they just stopped writing anything about us one way or the other as a series of draws and defeats did have us looking like we’d chucked it, only for a late-ish return to winning ways taking us back to the top albeit with just 7 minutes of the season to spare! The oldco bigots of Ibrox had an even worse season although 3rd place this season for Sevco is a long-term upward trend from the 5th place the originals finished in 1986 so maybe if they zoom out and look at things decade by decade they could dry their tears by realising they’re slowly creeping up on us. They’re already convinced they’re still the same club so they’ll clutch at any delusion of progress. lol
Davie Hay who was boss that season came to loggerheads with the old Celtic board over their biscuit tin mentality that had them, Jack McGinn in one instance, telling Hay if he wanted the new players he was interested in signing “he’d have to pay for them himself” – so the eerie similarities 40 years on aren’t just confined to a close finish between Celtic and Hearts. But that’s as much attention as I’ll give that….for the remainder of the season.
If there’s a Hearts fan who isn’t haunted by the ghosts of ’86 by now then they’re either too young or they’re lying. I suspect the pubs aroung Gorgie Rd and the tiny Hearts contingent at Celtic Park will once again face the chilling spectre Charlie & The Bhoys ended their infamous tribute song with when all is said and done this week and they head home deflated, despondent, destroyed inside…and it will be a long time before they posess top spot in the league again. They’ve shown an arrogance this season, fans and manager alike, that makes the fans and manager of ’86 seem modest – and they invaded the pitch in anger at Dens they felt so entitled to the title, a fatal mistake with a Celtic team that’s forgot how to lose right behind you and scoring for fun again.
“…The air speaks a deafening silence, but the name Albert Kidd lingers on.”
I was one of those doubters, and with damn good reason.
We haven’t won it YET so let’s just see how it goes.
The easiest thing in the world is to wait until there’s a couple of games left before committing ones self to whether we will win it or not.
But i’ve also said all along that i’d be more than happy to be proved wrong.
So, C’MON Celtic, prove me wrong against Motherwell tonight.
And then against ‘The Diets’ at the weekend.