Suddenly the Scottish Premiership title race has got very interesting indeed after Celtic lost two league games for the first time in a decade to open the door to theRangers with their manager yesterday proclaiming that he will definitely win the league as soon as possible.
As soon as possible in May next year and Brendan Rodgers before a ball was kicked – on the day he was re-appointed as Celtic manager back in June – stood outside the front door and told any detractors he still had in the Celtic support that he’d see them in the same spot in May 2024 as he celebrated alongside his players winning yet another title.
Celtic currently have a five points advantage over Philippe Clement’s side but have played two games more. One of those games in hand is played this evening when St Johnstone visit Ibrox so the gap could be down to just two points going into the weekend where Celtic play Livingston on Saturday before theRangers visit Fir Park to play Motherwell on Sunday.
Things then role onto the post Christmas fixture where Celtic are at Dens Park to take on Dundee on Boxing Day while theRangers are at home to Ross County on 27 December then it’s the big one when two title rivals meet at Celtic Park on Saturday 30 December for a game that looks like having a huge bearing on the destination of the title and you can click here to get some further insight into how the Glasgow Derby is likely to pan out.
There are still three Glasgow Derbies to play this season and Celtic have the advantage in that two of the three will be played at home while theRangers have just one match against Celtic at Ibrox, having lost the opening fixture of the season at home to Celtic back in September, when Kyogo scored the winner for Brendan Rodgers’s side with a wonderful strike just before the half-time whistle.
Both sides have had sticky patches this season with theRangers being forced to change their manager from Michael Beale to Clement who certainly appears to be an upgrade, although it has to be said that Beale hardly set the bar very high – he was schooled by Ange Postecoglou last season as brilliance was always going the be better than bluster.
Postecoglou left Celtic as treble winners to fulfil his lifetime ambition to manage in the English Premier League with Tottenham and he picked up the manager of the month award down south for each of the first three months of the season. The Tottenham fans seem to love him just as much as the Celtic fans did and they’ve even stolen some of our songs praising Big Ange.
As Postecoglou head south, Brendan Rodgers travelled back up the road to Glasgow as he had unfinished business at Celtic and wanted to address the hurt that his sudden departure for Leicester City one dark night in February 2019 and put things right by bringing more success to the club.
Rodgers won an Invincible treble in his first season as Celtic manager. He followed that up with another and then won the League Cup for a third consecutive time before his hasty exit. He left the club with Celtic at the top of the league and still in the Scottish Cup and Neil Lennon was brought in to finish the job of securing a Treble Treble, adding a fourth – a remarkable quadruple treble – which was actually completed on this day in 2020 – as the Scottish Cup later stages had been delayed due to the Covid pandemic.
📅 #OnThisDay in 2020, @CelticFC picked up an early Christmas present in a thrilling Scottish Cup Final win.
Conor Hazard’s heroics between the sticks allowed Kristoffer Ajer to step up and score the winning penalty.#ScottishCup pic.twitter.com/Ek5nWYvd3l
— Scottish Gas Scottish Cup (@ScottishCup) December 20, 2023
Rodgers had never lost a domestic cup tie in Scottish football until the 1-0 League Cup defeat at Kilmarnock in August this year. That opened the door for theRangers to win the League Cup for the first time in the club’s history against Aberdeen in the final. A few VAR favours from Andrew Dallas ensured that they got that one over the line.
That, plus Celtic’s mini-form slump, has seen confidence and arrogance soar across the city with theRangers supporters confident that they will be the ones celebrating a treble this season. Indeed as they are still in the Europa League, they are hoping to get to use the quadruple word for themselves this season.
So it’s going to be a rollercoaster, full of drama, twists and turns, no penalties against and plenty for theRangers, but ultimately the best team will win the title and when everyone in the Celtic corner calms down for a minute or two they’ll realise that the finest team in Scotland is ours and Brendan Rodgers can and will deliver on his promise.
It’s likely to be the title he enjoys the most, given what’s already happened this season.
