Gordon backs Celtic to improve for Premiership run-in
CRAIG GORDON has predicted Celtic will react positively to their painful 1-0 defeat to Rangers at Ibrox on Saturday in the second half of the season and stressed they still have the edge in the Scottish title race despite the setback. Gordon single-handedly prevented Brendan Rodgers’ side from suffering a far heavier loss to Steven Gerrard’s team after producing crucial saves from Daniel Candeias, Connor Goldson and Ryan Kent.
However, the goalkeeper, who had been on the losing side in just one of the 12 Glasgow derby matches he had been involved in before the weekend, is refusing to get downhearted by the Scottish champions’ disappointing showing.
He feels the Parkhead club, who were missing Leigh Griffiths, Tom Rogic and Kieran Tierney, will recover from the reverse and rediscover their best form in the remaining games of the 2018/19 campaign.
Gordon also denied that Celtic’s insistence on playing the ball out from the back had gifted their opponents the triumph and emphasised they are still ahead on goal difference and have played a game less.
“We have done so well at Ibrox in the past, but we didn’t play well enough to win,” he said. “But we are still top of the league with a game in hand. We will go away for a break, regroup and finish the season strongly.
“We just need to play better. We didn’t pass the ball particularly well at all, for whatever reason. But that has been a very successful style of play. We have done well doing that, winning a lot of matches at Ibrox playing that same way.
“That [teams pressing Celtic] is part of the game plan. It’s what we want. You want to try and play through them. It’s a cat and mouse game. You look to take advantage of that and so do the opposition. That’s part of the plan – to draw teams on to you to try and create space. We are going to try and enforce our game on everyone else.”
Gordon added: “We will look to improve, of course. We always learn from any defeats and analyse what happened. But we will come back stronger.
“It’s one win in 13 games. It’s still very heavily in our favour. It’s one game that we haven’t managed to win. We will stay calm, pick the bones out of it and come back stronger.”
The defeat means Celtic are now level on points with Rangers with a game in hand, with Aberdeen and Kilmarnock close behind.