John Lundstram's desperate pre-match Celtic comments have already backfired

By David Walton

May 1, 2022

Rangers midfielder John Lundstram’s desperate pre-match attempt to pile the pressure on Celtic has backfired after his side failed to narrow the gap.

The Glasgow derby ended in a 1-1 stalemate at Celtic Park this afternoon. In a game that our rivals needed to win to resurrect any hopes of securing the league championship, Ange Postecoglou’s side held on to a precious point that puts us within touching distance of glory.

And it came after Rangers midfielder Lundstram tried to pile the pressure on Celtic in a bid to unsettle them in the build-up.

He was speaking to Sky Sports ahead of the clash, and despite his side needing 3 points today, he decided to try one last desperate move to try and make Celtic feel the heat:

“We’ve got better as the season’s gone on. There’s a lot of pressure on Celtic now to take the league but with pressure comes expectation. Now it’s on them to finish strongly.

“We’ve seen stranger things happen in football than us getting it tighter. So no, listen, the pressure is on them. Let’s see what happens.”

Celtic shrug off any pre-match nerves to ensure 6-point lead remains intact

It’s difficult to know how the pressure was on us today. We didn’t need to win the game. It’s not us who are sitting 6 points behind with a vastly inferior goal-difference.

Rangers like to think of themselves as the best side in the country. Yet Lundstram is having to resort to mind-game tactics in a bid to get his team back into the title-race. He talks about Celtic as if there’s some sort of glaring question mark over them.

Yes, there’s a line that needs to be crossed. Yes, that’s going to take a win and a draw in our final 3 games. But that would require us to drop more points in the final 3 league matches than we have in the entirety of 2022.

To say there’s little chance of that happening wouldn’t be a case of over-confidence. If the title pressure was going to kick in then it already would’ve done by now. It would’ve kicked in as soon as we won at Ibrox at the start of April.

Lundstram gave it a good go, but ultimately his side failed in their mission of winning at Celtic Park today. That’s on him and his teammates, regardless of whether the Ibrox support tries to pretend they’re happy with it.

Today was a big day for Celtic. Lundstram’s comments simply didn’t work.

In other news, Video: Class full-time atmosphere shows just how big a step today is for Celtic