“The way we play and the way we train. It requires flippin’ hard work,” Joe Hart

Celtic take on St Mirren – the only team in the Scottish Premiership to have taken three points off Ange Postecoglou’s side – on Wednesday night. This time though the game is at Celtic Park, the ballboys will be doing what the are programmed to do and that is to keep the momentum up by returning the ball straight away, and the home advantage is likely to result in a very different kind of game to what happened in Paisley last September.

That defeat though probably helped Celtic in the longer term, since then very few points have been dropped – just two at Ibrox on 2 January and had VAR done its job, well you know the rest.

Joe Hart at the weekend looked back on that disappointing Celtic performance in Paisley last autumn and certainly didn’t grudge St Mirren the points, which he reckons were well won and thoroughly deserved on the day.

“They beat us fair and square in the last game,” the Celtic goalkeeper reflected, as reported by Glasgow Times. “A lot has happened since then and we’ve taken things one game at a time. Like when we played them previously, we’ll look to attack and win the game.

“We didn’t get too low after the last game but we didn’t deserve to get too low. We did okay in the game. We just didn’t do enough to win it and St Mirren did. We were maybe slightly off that day and they took advantage and beat us.

“It’s not a problem. It only becomes a problem in the following games if the same pattern emerges – but it didn’t. We don’t need to lose a game to remind us of what we need to do. That’s the beauty of the way we work as a group – we have daily reminders. We remind each other in the way we play and the way we train.

“It requires flippin’ hard work. We never think we should just win games regardless of anything. But we are a confident squad and we train the way we play.”

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About Author

The Celtic Star founder and editor David Faulds has edited numerous Celtic books over the past decade or so including several from Lisbon Lions, Willie Wallace, Tommy Gemmell and Jim Craig. Earliest Celtic memories include a win over East Fife at Celtic Park and the 4-1 League Cup loss to Partick Thistle as a 6 year old. Best game? Easy 4-2, 1979 when Ten Men Won the League. Email editor@thecelticstar.co.uk

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