Trophy Day has just become a lot bigger for Celtic for two reasons

By Hamish Carton

May 25, 2023

Trophy Day — the day when Celtic are reacquainted with the Premiership trophy.

It’s a near annual occurrence. A glorious, often sunny, spring day where fans bask in the glory of another successful league campaign.

The game can often become an afterthought. Frequently a dead rubber, it’s usually more about the post-match scenes than what happens during the 90 minutes.

That may still be the case to a certain extent this coming Saturday, but the game is likely to mean a lot more than it normally does, for a couple of reasons.

Celtic don’t want this terrific campaign to peter out. We have been relentless up until recent weeks.

Back on April 22, we had still only dropped five points. A month later and we’ve now shipped 15.

The prospect of us breaking records and hitting 109 points has gone. Now we can’t even make 100.

Of course, in the grand scheme of things, these are minor grumbles. Every Celtic fan would have settled for this at the start of the season.

But the past few weeks have been unlike this Celtic team. Another below par performance and result against Aberdeen may make the celebrations a little more subdued that they should be.

We don’t want that. We want an emphatic win, a big performance, and a huge party.

The second reason is actually more important than just avoiding a potential mood-killer.

We need a big performance to get morale boosted ahead of the Scottish Cup final.

It’s pretty easy to dismiss Inverness Caledonian Thistle as a lower-league outfit who Celtic should swat aside in their sleep.

But the facts are that a number of our key players are underperforming. We can’t risk them flopping at Hampden.

So quite simply, recent results mean this Trophy Day has become a lot more than just a box ticking exercise.

We need to see Celtic back to their best, just like we were in the final game against Motherwell last season.

In other news, Celtic have announced a testimonial for James Forrest