Celtic fans are neither greedy nor entitled for wanting this club to be more.
On the face of it, Celtic travelling to Ibrox for a League Cup tie without a single supporter inside the stadium sounds like a major disadvantage.
A full house behind the Ibrox side. No pocket of green and white. Nobody there to roar Celtic forward or celebrate if we stick the ball in their net.
Do you know what, though?
I’m not convinced it is the advantage to the Ibrox side that some people will make it out to be.
In fact, Celtic can turn it completely on its head.
Because if there is one thing we have learned about Ibrox over the years, it’s that when things aren’t going their way, that atmosphere can turn from supposedly intimidating for the opposition into absolutely poisonous for the home players.
And the reason for that is the level of expectation inside the place.
Or, perhaps more accurately, the level of delusion.
There remains this bizarre belief among sections of the Ibrox support that their club should naturally be the dominant force in Scottish football. It’s almost treated as some sort of birthright.
The evidence of the modern era tells them otherwise, but why let reality spoil a perfectly good fantasy?
That false pretence is precisely what Celtic need to exploit.
Martin O’Neill should be sending his team out with one message: start on the front foot, get your chest out, take the ball and make those first 15 or 20 minutes as uncomfortable for the Ibrox side as humanly possible.
Do that and 50,000 home supporters might start doing half our work for us.
Celtic must make Ibrox uncomfortable from the first whistle.
There can be no timid opening.
None of this feeling your way into the match, allowing the Ibrox side to build momentum and giving their crowd something to get excited about.
Celtic need to get in there and throw the first few punches.
Take possession. Move them around. Press aggressively when the ball is lost. Force a couple of mistakes. Win an early corner. Get a shot away.
Anything that plants that first little seed of doubt inside Ibrox.
Because doubt doesn’t take long to grow in that cesspit of a place.
An early Celtic goal would obviously be the dream scenario, but even without one, you can frustrate that support simply by controlling the football match.
That’s where the unusual nature of this fixture becomes fascinating.
Normally, the Ibrox support has somewhere else to direct its anger.
Us.
Celtic fans are in the corner. The songs are going back and forth. Every tackle, every decision and every incident becomes part of the rivalry between the two supports.
Their bile has a target to be aimed at, that has already sang “Simply The Best” with more joy than them before kick off.
Not this time.
There’s nobody else to blame.
Nobody in green and white to scream at. Nobody across the segregation line to focus their attention on.
Just their own players.
If the home side starts badly, every misplaced pass will be greeted by groans from their own supporters.
Lose possession cheaply and the noise gets louder.
Celtic dominate for another five minutes and suddenly those grand expectations of superiority start colliding rather inconveniently with what’s actually happening on the football pitch.
Ibrox isn’t necessarily a cauldron for Celtic.
It can become a pressure cooker for the team playing there every second week.
Celtic can make the Ibrox side feel their own support.
There is a huge difference between a passionate home crowd driving its team forward and an expectant home crowd demanding its team wins because, somewhere along the line, they’ve convinced themselves that success is simply what they’re entitled to.
The Ibrox support doesn’t arrive at these games hoping its team can compete with Celtic.
They expect them to.
Why?
Well, that’s where you start struggling for an answer.
The mythology surrounding the place appears to have survived far better than the actual dominance.
The mythology surrounding the place appears to have survived far better than the actual dominance.
That disconnect between expectation and reality creates enormous pressure.
For all the talk about Ibrox being some great fortress, Celtic players have experienced that stadium enough times to know exactly what happens when the home support doesn’t like what it’s watching.
The volume doesn’t disappear.
It changes direction.
Encouragement becomes frustration. Frustration becomes anger. Anger becomes booing.
Suddenly the players who were supposed to be inspired by this magnificent home support are trying to complete five-yard passes while thousands of people are losing their minds because the world isn’t conforming to the version of reality they’ve created for themselves.
That’s when Celtic have to smell blood.
I don’t want to see us retreat if that starts happening.
Quite the opposite.
Keep the ball.
Make the Ibrox side chase it.
Take another 20 or 30 passes and listen to the stadium becoming increasingly impatient.
If you’ve got them chasing shadows for a spell, don’t force the killer ball simply because it’s Ibrox. Make them suffer without possession.
Every additional pass becomes another little turn of the screw.
Eventually somebody in blue tries something they shouldn’t because they feel compelled to make something happen.
There’s your opportunity.
Their delusion can become Celtic’s advantage.
This is the part I find fascinating.
A support with realistic expectations can accept difficult periods in matches.
Sometimes the opposition has the ball. Sometimes your team is second best for ten minutes. Sometimes you have to weather a storm.
Football supporters understand that.
Entitlement struggles with it.
When you’ve convinced yourself that your club belongs at the top simply because of who you believe yourselves to be, watching Celtic come into your own stadium and dictate the football becomes almost impossible to process.
That’s where the anger comes from, or in their case at least some of it. Let’s be honest they are angry all the time even when they win the odd game.
Reality isn’t matching the expectation.
And that frustration transfers directly onto the pitch.
A player can be perfectly capable of playing a simple ten-yard pass on the training ground. Try playing that same pass after you’ve given the ball away twice and thousands of your own supporters are screaming at you.
Suddenly it doesn’t feel quite as simple.
The legs get heavier.
Another player stops showing for the ball because he doesn’t want to be the next one who loses it.
Someone takes an extra touch.
A safe pass goes backwards and the crowd hates it.
Now imagine Celtic immediately win the ball back.
Another roar of anger.
Another reminder to the home players that this isn’t going according to the script their supporters arrived expecting to watch.
That anxiety becomes contagious.
Get the first goal and watch the mood change
Imagine Celtic score first.
That’s when this becomes really interesting.
Suddenly the pressure isn’t theoretical anymore.
The Ibrox side has to respond.
Their supporters demand a response.
Not patiently, either.
Remember, they’re not supposed to be losing. Not according to the mythology anyway.
Every minute that passes without an equaliser increases the frustration.
That’s precisely when Celtic need to show maturity.
Don’t get sucked into making it a basketball game. Don’t start forcing passes because adrenaline takes over. Don’t give the opposition cheap transitions simply because you’re desperate to land the knockout blow.
Control them.
There’s something deliciously frustrating for a home crowd about watching the opposition calmly knocking the ball around while you’re losing.
Use that.
Let the clock tick.
Make them come and get it.
Every Celtic pass is another few seconds for the home support to contemplate why the natural order they apparently believe in isn’t materialising in front of them.
Then, when the Ibrox side starts committing bodies forward and spaces appear, that’s when you hurt them again.
Martin O’Neill has been around football far too long not to understand the psychological side of an occasion like this.
He’ll know Celtic cannot arrive frightened of the environment.
Embrace it.
Turn their supposed advantage against them
That’s really what this entire game comes down to for me.
Celtic cannot control the ticketing situation.
We can’t magically put thousands of our supporters inside Ibrox.
So stop thinking about what we don’t have and look at what the home side does have.
Fifty thousand people expecting them to win.
The same fifty thousand people scrutinising every pass and carrying expectations which aren’t necessarily based upon what their football team has actually delivered.
Fifty thousand people who will become increasingly agitated if Celtic take control of proceedings.
That’s pressure.
Use it.
Many people prefer it when both sets of fans are inside the ground for these fixtures.
But we’re dealing with the reality in front of us.
And, unlike some, I’m quite happy operating in reality.
Go to Ibrox bravely.
Soulders back. Chin up. Chest out.
Get on the football immediately and make it clear we’re not there to survive the opening stages.
Land the first jab.
Then another.
Make the Ibrox side uncomfortable. Make them hear every groan. Make them feel every misplaced pass.
If Celtic can get themselves in front, even better.
Because the supposed Ibrox fortress looks considerably less intimidating when its own inhabitants are raging at the people they’re meant to be supporting.
That’s the irony of this entire situation.
No Celtic fans. An entire stadium behind the Ibrox side. A supposed wall of noise designed to intimidate Martin O’Neill’s players.
Fine.
Let them make noise.
Celtic’s job is to make sure that, before too long, they’re aiming it at their own team.
Get the Ibrox support angry early enough, feed that wonderful sense of entitlement with absolutely nothing to celebrate — then stand back and let them apply the pressure for us.
They don’t need both sets of fans inside their ground to make the place a toxic nightmare for their own team.
