Hearts currently sit top of the Scottish Premiership with a five points lead over current Champions Celtic and a massive 13 points lead over theRangers…
On Sunday afternoon Brendan Rodgers takes his misfiring Celtic side, who lost 2-0 away to Dundee last weekend, to Tynecastle where Derek McInnes will have his Hearts side fired up and looking for the three points. That would give Hearts a significant eight points advantage and have their fans dreaming of a first title win since 1960.
Charlie Mulgrew, the former Celtic and Aberdeen defender, has this week upset the Jambos by declaring that in his view Hearts have no chance of winning the Scottish Premiership even if they do beat Celtic on Sunday. He reckons that Hearts will not be within eight points of Celtic come next May.
Speaking on talkSPORT earlier this week Mulgrew stood by his earlier claim that Hearts stood no chance of going onto win the league. This despite Celtic being in turmoil with the fans unhappy with the Board and the team underperforming, struggling badly to score goals and with Brendan Rodgers actually comparing his current team to a Honda Civic rather than the Ferrari he was managing last season.
“The fans aren’t happy. The fans will be at the club a lot longer than any manager. The fans are a huge part of Celtic and they always have been,” Mulgrew said. “They are a huge part of any club, they deserve to have their say and get their point across.
“Right now, Hearts are five points clear, Rangers have got a new manager in and you would imagine they can’t get any worse – they might even finish in the top six this year, so you would imagine they are going to get better. Once everyone is united things will get better.”
Host Alan Brazil reckoned that Mulgrew should give “credit” to Hearts, before Mulgrew noted the annoyance among the Hearts fans after his earlier remarks. “They are not happy with me, the Hearts fans. I have come out and said they’ll never be up the top. I said they will be eight points adrift, away from the top.
“My argument is that in my lifetime I have never seen a team outside of Celtic or Rangers mount a title challenge.”
Brazil then reminded Mulgrew that in 2015 Aberdeen under Derek McInnes at one stage looked like challenging Celtic for the title with theRangers – the new version of a Rangers working their way up through the lower leagues after the new club started in the fourth tier of Scottish football.
Mulgrew replied: “I was there when Aberdeen put up a half challenge. I don’t we ever thought that (it was a challenge). They maybe gave us a wee bit of a look over our shoulder, but we were fine.”
Hopefully Celtic will be fine again come next May but the team really has to start shaking of their early season slumber, because titles have to be won and it’s going to be a real fight to the finish this season by the looks of it.
Celtic in the Thirties in Two Volumes – Brilliantly researched and written by Matt Corr. An unmissable addition to any Celtic bookshelf. Click on the image below to order your copies…
