We played you off the park and title race isn’t over yet
Celts star Turnbull insists 10-in-a-row bid is not dead yet
DAVID TURNBULL insists Celtic will fight until the bitter end in the title race despite defeat by Rangers leaving them trailing their rivals by a whopping 19 points.
The midfielder vowed the champions won’t let their heads drop having suffered a real blow to their 10-in-arow hopes after Callum McGregor’s own goal sent them crashing to defeat at Ibrox. Neil Lennon’s men will spend this week in Dubai at a warm-weather training camp to prepare for the second half of the season. And Turnbull is targeting a winning run that can haul them back into the fight for the Premiership crown. The Hoops have pushed their
next fixture against Hibs back 48 hours due to their trip to the Middle East.
And they will be 22 points behind Gers by the time they kick off at Parkhead on Monday night if Steven Gerrard’s men can win at Pittodrie the previous day.
But Celtic will have four games in hand over their arch rivals.
With two Old Firm derbies left this season, Turnbull isn’t conceding anything.
And the £ 3million midfielder says that they can take heart from their dominant derby display before Nir Bitton’s sending-off turned the game in Gers’ favour.
Turnbull said: “The boys can take a lot of heart f rom the performance at the weekend and we will keep fighting and keep pushing. We have a lot of ground to make up and a lot of work to do.
“But you have to remember that there’s still a lot of football to be played in the second half of the season.
“Obviously the result against Rangers was not the way we wanted things to go but our heads can’t go down.
“Everyone in the team will be giving it 100 per cent. We’ve played them off the park for most of the game.
“We played really well and it’s about retaining the belief and kicking on for the rest of the season.”
Celtic also suffered an Old Firm defeat before heading to Dubai for their camp last year.
But they responded in style, winning nine games in a row upon their return to action and staying unbeaten in domestic action until the campaign was halted.
Now Turnbull hopes to see a repeat when they get back to Scotland from the training trip.
He said: “It’s about picking ourselves up and trying to go on that allimportant winning run.
“We need to win as many games as we can. We can’t look at anyone else.
“We need to get results and that’s our aim for the second half of the season.
“This team has shown it’s more than capable of going on winning runs and we need to find that level of consistency in the second half of the season.
“We need to forget about the defeat, put it to the back of our minds and move on.
“We will focus on ourselves and dust ourselves down.”