Jumping to conclusions is an Olympic event in Scottish football.
On one hand we have a notoriously low tolerance threshold. One game is all it takes to change minds, harden attitudes and shorten tempers. Good becomes bad overnight. If, on the other hand, you’re the winner of that one game, memory banks are closed where the recent past is concerned. For example, Celtic fans revelled in beating Rangers in two cup ties and a league match since the start of 2023 despite not playing particularly well.
But when they didn’t play well and lost to Rangers at Ibrox last weekend, what was once a virtue then became a vice. Celtic’s strength in depth has now been called into question by their own supporters. This might be thought a premature criticism of a team who are one game away from a world record-breaking Treble and with the recently crowned Player and Manager of the Year on their side.
It would be the ultimate condemnation of Celtic’s relatively lifeless performance at Ibrox if anyone could provide a shred of evidence to support the idea of Inverness Caley
Thistle now being capable of beating Ange Postecoglou’s side in the Scottish Cup Final. That would surely be a test of anyone’s credulity.
Yuki Kobayashi might have been outmuscled and looked terrorised by stronger minds and bodies at Ibrox. But if the same thing happened to him against players from a side who finished in the bottom half of the Championship then Postecoglou really would have a problem on his hands.
I met Ange at the PFA Scotland dinner last Sunday and he didn’t look traumatised by the events 24 hours earlier. The loss to Rangers was only his fifth league defeat in two seasons.
Prophecies of doom are, on that basis, not the reason why club owner Dermot Desmond dropped by for a chat last week with the manager. Postecoglou chose a team to play Rangers that tested the standard of some fringe players.
He did so against Rangers because the rest of the teams in the league are so far behind they wouldn’t help provide an accurate reading of what the manager needed to know.
If what you discover about players is negative then that’s part of the learning process. Some fans were annoyed that Rangers’ win sabotaged Celtic’s chance of a record points and goals-scored haul.
But these things are trinkets and baubles for Postecoglou whose preoccupation is acquiring genuine silverware. I thought about it last Monday on the 15th anniversary of Tommy Burns’ sad passing. Tommy understood the significance of stopping Rangers winning nine-in-a-row when he was Celtic manager.
Club owner Fergus McCann was more interested in rebuilding the institution he saved from ruin. The inevitable happened.
But McCann put business before bragging rights – and Postecoglou seems a bit like that too. When Rangers play Hibs at Easter Road this afternoon they’ll need to deliver a display that lives up to the hype.
Managers Michael Beale and Lee Johnson are out on their own for verbosity. But the soundbite of the last week belongs to neither man.
Soon-to-be chief executive at Ibrox, James Bisgrove has spoken publicly about Rangers becoming the “dominant club” in Scotland again. The timing is obvious and there’s nothing at all wrong with talking up the brand.
I’m told James gets about town in a Bentley. He has just promised fans a Rolls-Royce now that the showroom’s been refurbished on the back of a convincing win over their rivals.
It’s foot-to-the-pedal time for Celtic and Rangers while the supporters go through the gears off the park. We are the mood swing capital of the world
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