‘Going for 55,’ Celtic’s 13 in a row target

CELTIC can target 13 in a row and put the fear of GOD – a Generation of Domination – into every Zombie soul.

Up until now they have thought that stopping Celtic getting 10IAR would be their main objective and in doing so their own deeply flawed Going for 55 would be achieved and would be all the sweeter in that it stopped the Ten.

As time goes by the Ten in a Row hype is going to develop – the Celtic Da’s can all remember what it was like in the mid 1990s are they added league win after league win to edge closer to Jock Stein’s remarkable achievement.

Wim, Henrik etc arrived just in time though and Fergus McCann – never the most popular of men at the time – had done enough to stop the ten. It was a close call though but Celtic had a plan, a man like Fergus had arrived, a new stadium was built and players of genuine quality were purchased for not insubstantial sums – some of them like Henrik Larsson and Paul Lambert were performers at the highest level in the game.

Celtic fans dug deep into their pockets and their savings, some borrowed money, to buy shares in the club.

Celtic was saved then the dreaded 10IAR was stopped.

Looking back Celtic – Fergus – managed to get some momentum but it was close. It came down to the second half of the last league game of the season before it was settled.

Across the city in 2018 where is the momentum? Dave King is no Fergus McCann and the players that are there are no match for the team that Celtic assembled to be good enough to stop the Ten.

But if they think their worst nightmare is Celtic doing Ten in a Row then it isn’t. Think a few more seasons down the line and we’ll be “Going for 55′ ourselves.

David Potter, of this parish, has written another Celtic book which will be out in the autumn. It’s about Celtic winning the league 49 times.

So next season is 50 – in Zombie logic that allows you five stars on a shirt – we should put them on the back of our shorts – five stars my arse, being the message.

Then it’s 51, 52, 53, 54 and for 13 in a row 55…

You going to stop that Mr King? Frankly there are no reason to believe that you are capable of that. Over the next two months Celtic have the chance to progress to the Champions League Groups stages and if we make it that will be another £40million distance between the clubs.

The Virgil van Dijk money will arrive to – another £10million as Celtic’s cut of the deal that took him from Southampton to Liverpool in January.

There’s a documentary on BT tonight at 6pm and it features interviews with the 3 Celtic managers so far involved in our march towards 55.

Ronny Deila admits that he nearly dropped the baton in his second season and knew he had to hand it over to someone else. He thinks that the Ten is on the cards.

“Will Celtic do ten in a row? I think so. But it’s about history, you know.

“I think eight will go quite easy and then nine, maybe. But the tenth…then the final moment is coming.

“We will see but we, and I say we, have a good chance. Did I fear that five-in-a-row might not happen? Yes. We didn’t play well and that was one of the reasons why I said, ‘Enough is enough’ and left.

“The worst thing that could have happened to me was that we lost the title. We had won four and that was the fifth. To lose that would have been devastating.

“My second season was very tough. I didn’t get momentum at all and you feel like you are fighting all the time to get going.

“We had a really strong first year and looked strong going into the Champions League qualifiers.

“When we didn’t get in the group stages, problems started. The Champions League is so important for everyone at Celtic. Not getting there was a big hit — it was hard to get back up from that.

“When we then lost to Rangers (sic) in the Scottish Cup, there was too much talk around my position and whether I was the right man.

“The only way to keep titles going and get improvement was for me to go, but I’m proud of the job I did.”