Celtic centre-back Carl Starfelt delivered a brilliant response when asked about the dressing room’s reaction to Rangers’ slip-up on Sunday.
It looked as though the Hoops’ 0-0 draw at Easter Road was going to be punished by Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s side. Rangers were 2-0 up on Motherwell at half-time before conspiring to drop 2 crucial points in the title race.
It was a major surprise and allowed Ange Postecoglou’s men to remain 3 points ahead of our foes heading into the final 10 Premiership matches of the season.
However, Starfelt has claimed that the dressing room were anything but relieved when they heard about the result. Instead, he stuck to the narrative that we were only ever concentrating on ourselves.
As quoted by the Herald, when asked about whether the dressing room was relieved, Starfelt said: “No, not really. We were obviously disappointed that we didn’t take the 3 points ourselves against Hibernian but I think we played a fairly good game, even though we couldn’t get that winning goal.
“But we don’t pay any attention to the other teams right now. There are still 10 games left so whether they are winning or drawing is not going to affect our approach or our style going forward.
“The clean sheet at Easter Road was a positive to take from the game. We looked very solid defensively and didn’t give them any chances in the 90 minutes.”
Celtic not focusing on Rangers as Premiership heat cranks up
Starfelt makes himself perfectly clear here, and this is a narrative that Celtic have been itching to drum into the media and the supporters for some time. The Hoops simply aren’t interested in what opposition teams around us do.
It’s clear that this is something Ange is drilling into his Celtic players. Something that he wants them to ingrain into their minds as we enter the closing stages of the title race. You can see why too.
After all, we know just how much emotions can differ based on Rangers’ results for supporters. It can make or break their weekend if it leads to our gap being narrowed or extended. However, Ange instead wants our players focused only on our own performance levels and results.
That doesn’t mean the Celtic players won’t be checking Rangers results. Of course they will. It’s only natural and you can’t avoid checking what the opposition are doing. However, it’s not something that they’re allowing to affect their own approach to matches.
That’s what Celtic mean when they say they don’t take notice of other teams. The 0-0 draw with Hibs wasn’t totally forgotten about, for example, because Rangers dropped some points.
We got away with it on Sunday and the dressing room will know that was the case. Hopefully, it’s an approach that will see us secure the title come May.
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