Finally, the Scottish Premiership returns this week after a long month without any football in the top-flight. For Celtic, it’s a chance to reassert authority amidst increasingly absurd hype about what’s going on across the city.
The appointment of Michael Beale appears to have sent certain sections of the media into an overdrive of optimism and chatter about their ability to chase down Celtic’s nine-point lead and get the better of Ange Postecoglou’s Bhoys.
Even when informed characters, such as Hibernian boss Lee Johnson who has faced both teams this season, tells the truth, it sparks odd rebuttals.
Former Ibrox captain Barry Ferguson’s comments this week may have been the most bizarre – insisting that a new matchday protocol of formal wear and brown brogues will help them in their quest to beat Celtic. He devoted an entire column to it.
Ferguson also reckons Johnson’s comments about Celtic being better than Rangers will have undoubtedly reached their dressing room, calling on the players to use ‘tradition’ to overcome that belief and send a message to Hibs tonight.
He told The Daily Record: “It’s a vital 90 minutes, make no mistake. Beale will want to lay down a marker and will be demanding that his team gets right after Hibs from the front whistle.
“We started this by talking about tradition. Another one we had was pinning up things in the dressing room that the opposition had said negatively about us.
“Lee Johnson’s comments about Celtic being a much better team than Rangers would have been on the pinboard back in my time. Maybe it will be tomorrow night as well.
“I know if I was in that dressing room, taking off my suit, shirt, tie and brogues and pulling that blue shirt over my head, I’d be using that as a motivation to prove the Hibs wrong. Sometimes you have to look to the past to help you move forward.”
For me, it’s probably this kind of thinking that has Rangers where they are, with just two trophies won in more than a decade. It’s pretty daft stuff. Do we think Postecoglou is making our players brown brogues for some added motivation? Of course not.
Ultimately, what has never been said by any of these Rangers-leaning pundits is that everything remains in Celtic’s hands, regardless of what Beale does at Ibrox. If the Bhoys stay on the course we have been on for the last 18 months then they can wear as many nice ties as they want – little will change in Glasgow.
If nothing else, the return of football will at least help pierce through this kind of bluster, especially if the Bhoys pick up a big win at Pittodrie this weekend.
In other news, “We respect them”; Aberdeen boss wary of Celtic’s attacking threats.
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
