BRACED FOR THE FINAL SPRINT
Post-split fixtures bring the real title drama as pressure ramps up with the silverware in sight
WHEN the players and managers of Celtic and Rangers engage with those of us fortunate enough to chronicle sport for a living around this time of year, a familiar game plays out.
Probed by journalists about the importance of winning any given match in a race that’s tighter than piano wire, anyone on this side of the fence anticipating anything other than banal platitudes in response just hasn’t been paying attention.
Questions are invariably met with a straight bat. The dictaphones are all packed away and everyone shuffles off until the next time when little of consequence will be said again. Rinse, repeat. Until we eventually reach the end of the programme.
Determined not to give the opposition a grain of fuel for their fire, diplomacy usually always rules. It is just how it is and how it always has been.
It fools no one, however. You feel the tension in the air and can see the anxiety in the eyes in these defining weeks. The words may be bland but the drama that will unfold across the next month may well take the breath away. Where golf has the clutch putt, boxing the final bell and cricket the last over, the Scottish Premiership has the post-split fixtures.
Over the course of a month, the respective halves of the Old Firm will leave nothing out there in the hope that the sense of unbridled joy is theirs in the final reckoning. A hair’s breadth may well separate triumph from disaster.
Four games against the country’s better sides will be dissected by a fourth and final Old Firm league joust at Celtic Park on May 11.
That game may not prove to be decisive, but it will assuredly be compelling.
Clinging on by their fingertips at the point where Philippe Clement came in, Rangers’ consistency earned them pole position until they hosted Celtic for the final time earlier this month.
With seven points dropped across that match and their clashes with Ross County and Dundee, the Belgian hit the speed bumps at the worst possible time.
Rangers can ill-afford that trend to continue when they face St Mirren in Paisley today and Kilmarnock at Ibrox next week.
A convincing win over Hearts in the Scottish Cup semi-final last weekend was just the tonic their supporters needed.
Cyriel Dessers, the two-goal hero of that day, wasn’t reading off the regular script when he assessed what lies ahead.
‘If you look at the last months, we showed what we’re capable of,’ said the forward. ‘It’s just the thing to find this vibe back. If we can find that rhythm, I think we’re the best team in the league.’
You cannot fault the man for his honesty. Rest assured, though, that if the final table suggests otherwise, many on both sides of the divide will do just that.
Clement’s players still have a long way to go to justify the jubilant lap of honour which followed the 3-3 home draw with Celtic.
The manager (right) closed out titles in his homeland with Genk and Club Brugge but his Monaco team collapsed last year as they tried to cling on to a Champions League spot.
The coming month will determine if he is viewed as the real deal or a nearly man in Glasgow.
‘There’s so much riding on every pass, every tackle and every shot,’ former captain Barry Ferguson said of these final matches. ‘Do whatever is required to get three points tucked away and then worry about what comes next later.’
The comfort for Rangers supporters is that they have title winners in their squad.
The concern surrounding the likes of James Tavernier, Connor Goldson and Borna Barisic is that triumph came during the Covid season of 2020-21 when no fans were present. Winning the Scottish Cup in 2022 and the League Cup under Clement earlier this season under normal circumstances were significant moments, yet they offer no guarantee that a league title will necessarily follow.
Aside from a slender lead, Celtic have course and distance in their favour, with Rangers’ runaway title success three years ago the only break in the Parkhead club’s domination of the main domestic prize going back to 2012.
Brendan Rodgers (left) has been here before, of course. His side finished 39 points ahead of Rangers in 2016-17, with the gap still a sizeable 12 the following year.
The fact that Aberdeen finished second on both of those occasions says much for the state the Ibrox club were in, though. Those days are not coming back.
While a possible photofinish is new territory for the Northern Irishman, he has a raft of players who have recently prevailed in such a manner. Ange Postecoglou’s two title wins were by only four and seven points, respectively. Those players who remain at the club know what it takes to win when it counts.
Starting with a treacherous trip to Dundee tomorrow, they’ll back themselves to do so yet again.
They wouldn’t be human, however, if the potential consequence of a
slip-up did not cross their
A hair’s breadth may well separate triumph from disaster
mind. Back in 2003, Martin O’Neill’s side won their last six games but were still left to rue an earlier loss at Tynecastle.
Rangers did the necessary, hammering Dunfermline on the final day of the season to take the trophy by a goal.
Two years later, Celtic won the final Old Firm game at Ibrox and still lost to Hibs and Motherwell. Alex McLeish’s side kept going and the helicopter changed direction on the final day.
Under Neil Lennon in 2011, an unforeseen reverse at Inverness also handed Rangers a slender advantage that they would not relinquish.
Rangers also have previous for going to pieces at this juncture. Juggling European commitments back in 2008, they drew with Hibs and Motherwell and lost at Aberdeen as Gordon Strachan’s side pieced together a run of seven straight wins to just pip them at the post.
What the current managers of the respective teamss wouldn’t give to bottle the belief and spirit Celtic showed going down the home straight that year.
‘This has been one of the most fantastic occasions of my life with a bunch of guys that believed in me — and I believed in them,’ Strachan said after his team clinched the title with a 1-0 victory away to Dundee United.
There will doubtless be a few palpitations and a several stomachchurning matches to endure before similar words of triumph are able to pass the lips of Rodgers or Clement.
The action that comes from the pressure cooker before that moment arrives will certainly speak for itself.