Mclaughlin questions Celtic’s air of invincibility
Keeper hopes to help end unbeaten run
Jon Mclaughlin has questioned Celtic’s invincible status while pointing out they are far from Manchester City’s level of superiority.
The goalkeeper will be in the firing line for Hearts against Celtic at Tynecastle tomorrow as the champions seek to make it 70 unbeaten domestic games in a row. Mclaughlin noted Celtic’s less convincing displays in recent weeks – they have been held to draws by Hibs and Motherwell, and been beaten by Anderlecht and Paris-saint-germain in the Champions League – and he compared this to Manchester City’s run of 15 successive league wins in England.
“No-one is looking at their [Celtic’s] defeats in Europe and thinking, ‘ah, that’s how we’ll do it’,” he said. “With the calibre of teams they’re playing there, there’s certainly no embarrassment there.
“But they’ve been drawing quite a few games over this run. It’s not like Man City, where they are putting everyone to the sword by three or four every week. There have been tight games and ones where they’ve almost thrown it away, ones where they’ve had to claw it back real late. So there is certainly not the invincible tag there that maybe there is with others.”
Mclaughlin believes Hearts can take advantage of Celtic’s determination to reach anothfor er round number in a recordbreaking run stretching back to the end of the 2015-16 season.
“The pressure is on them, not us,” said Mclaughlin. “The expectations from everyone is that Celtic are going to be the dominant team. It’s one to go and enjoy at the end of the day and if you can be the one to do it then it’s a huge feather in the hat and we’d enjoy that.”
Craig Levein will face Celtic
the first time as manager since he led Dundee United to a 2-1 win at Tannadice in November 2009.
When Hearts lost 4-1 to Celtic in their opening league match this season head coach Ian Cathro had already been dispensed with and under-20s coach Jon Daly was in interim charge. The occasion was made more memorable when Daly reproached Brendan Rodgers at length afterwards after the Celtic manager had seen fit to comment on what he described as Hearts’ “confused” recruitment policy.
“Exactly the opposite,” said Levein, when asked if he had spoken to Rodgers since. “Listen, I was annoyed and I think Jon Daly was annoyed because it was nothing to do with him.”