ARFIELD WINS THE MIND GAMES
derby and losing the first, you quickly forget about that.
“You reflect, you take the good and the bad. That one, everything was there with the full house and winning the game, comfortably in the end. It was magic.
“When I walked through those doors at Ibrox to sign that contract, the Old Firm is the game you are drawn to and the one you want to win as much as possible.
“Now we have done it. I had the opportunity to walk off the pitch having given that to the fans and that result was for all of them who have stuck with the club through thick and thin.
“The belief has always been there but it can take a result like that for it to get into everybody and for the fans to believe.
“For us in the dressing room, the belief has always been there and we want to be successful as soon as possible. It does amplify it when you get a result like that and it was a comfortable victory in the end.
“Things gather momentum, we grow as a team and results like Celtic only help. It happened for us at Burnley where we weren’t always pretty on the eye but it was momentum, grinding out games and just being able to win.”
Rangers lost the final two Old Firm games of last season 4-0 and 5-0 and Arfield admitted something had to change in the derby.
He said: “I used to watch them all the time, I never missed one. It is different watching it to when you are playing in it. You never really see it how you are playing, it’s difficult to describe. Of course there has been a gulf in class over the last few years, the results tell you that and you don’t need to watch the performances.
“I’ve watched every one of them and thankfully we have the bragging rights until the next one.
“After the Parkhead defeat I was away on international duty and I never watched that game back until a couple of weeks later.
“That was good for me. We lost and I reflected on it going into the next game. I got away from it and I never read anything good or bad about it.
“I’ve done the same again. I went away with the kids to Centre Parcs and haven’t seen anything. I have not seen the game back. I don’t want to watch it back. It is fresh in my mind and I know what I did.”