Barry Ferguson forced to change his tune on title race as rivals fail at Celtic Park

By David Walton

May 3, 2022

Barry Ferguson was all fighting talk last month, but that appears to have changed after Celtic avoided defeat against Rangers on Sunday.

Ferguson, a former Rangers captain, had been puffing his chest out even after Celtic won 2-1 at Ibrox to severely damage their title chances. He stated back then that he would never concede the title whilst it was still mathematically possible [Daily Record].

However, after Sunday’s 1-1 draw at Celtic Park, Ange Postecoglou’s team sit 6 clear of the Ibrox side with 3 games to go. Not to mention a vastly superior goal difference. Yet even though it’s still possible for our rivals, Ferguson more or less conceded the title as he stated even the Rangers players will know it’s over.

He tried to desperately turn his attentions to Thursday night as he attempted to push that Rangers merited 3 points on the day. In his latest Record column, he said: “I’ve not got the blue-tinted specs on here, honestly, but Rangers were the better team after the break and if anyone was going to win it, they were. It didn’t happen and they’ll have sat in the dressing room disappointed that they didn’t get the three points.

“There will be some people who might be thinking that getting a draw at home of your rivals, when a win for them would have clinched the league title in everything but name wasn’t the worst result for Rangers. But top players don’t think that way. The Rangers players will know the game was there to be won in the second half.

“They’ll know a win would have put a bit of pressure on Celtic. Yeah, the likelihood is that the title would still end up at Parkhead, but if the gap had gone to three points and with Hearts next up for them, you just never know. That’s why Gio’s men will have left there frustrated. They’ll know it is over now.”

Celtic lead finally has Ferguson seeing some sense regarding title race

Celtic won’t be complacent at this stage. We know that the manager won’t allow that kind of thinking to come into the dressing room. Not when there’s only really 1 win needed to seal the championship.

However, for the rest of us, there’s no point denying reality. Celtic should win the league at this point. If they didn’t, then it would be the biggest collapse potentially in the history of the competition. It’s unthinkable that this doesn’t happen now.

There was a stage in the season where many of us would’ve been happy just to get closer to our rivals and mark it down as real progress. But that train of thought is now long gone. Celtic are where they are because they deserve to be in that situation, and now it’s time to finish the job.

The fact that even Ferguson knows it’s over shows you where we’re now at. It also shows exactly how well Celtic have played since that win at Ibrox in early April. We’ve now picked up so many positive results since then that there’s now no alternative but to admit it’s ours to go and snatch.

Rangers fans will pretend that they were only really concentrating on the Europa League anyway. But we all know the truth. We all know that one defeat to Leipzig on Thursday night and all of a sudden their season will actually have been a disaster.

Only at that point will the devastation of losing the title dawn on the Rangers support. But it’s clear any hope they had of catching us has now firmly disappeared.

In other news, Hearts player addresses class post-match chat with Ange after Celtic defeat