Scott Brown, the Celtic captain, has tentatively set his sights on a season in which the Parkhead side could be invincibles.
Brendan Rodgers’ side are currently on an winning league streak of 22 consecutive wins, while they are unbeaten in 34 domestic games. The British record stands at 25, a run established by Martin O’Neill’s side in 2003-04.
There has been a natural coyness about the possibility of emulating the feat of the Arsenal team of season who, – with current Celtic stopper Kolo Toure in their defence – achieved that feat under Arsene Wenger in the same season which the Parkhead side went on a long run of their own.
Read more: Kieran Tierney on why Celtic legend Tommy Gemmell will always be the club's greatest left-back
However, speaking to The Celtic View, Brown has acknowledged just how tantalising close Celtic are to doing it.
“We have to try and keep our run going for as long as we possibly can,” said Brown. The way we are playing who says we can’t keep winning just now. We just need to take it game by game. Playing against Rangers is a huge game for us, especially at Celtic Park. We have played against good teams at Celtic Park and got results and I am sure we can do it again.”
And the Hoops skipper believes that Celtic showed the manner in which they can cope with any kind of adversity when they came from behind to win at Ibrox on Hogmanay.
“The main thing about the last game is that we didn’t have the best of starts. You expect Rangers to come out at Ibrox and they came out and did well for 20 minutes but we were confident in our fitness levels and our belief in one another.
“As soon as we went 1-0 down no-one panicked. We looked around at each other and thought ‘they have a goal head start now here we go, let’s start playing.’
“We could have scored four or five and although they hit the post late on when it was 2-1, we had other good chances.”
Read more: Kieran Tierney on why Celtic legend Tommy Gemmell will always be the club's greatest left-back
Meanwile, Brendan Rodgers is optimistic that winger James Forrest, who has a knee injury, could be back in line for to play this Sunday.
“James will hopefully be back as well next week and Tom Rogic will be back in a little time as well,” he said. “We have a great squad of players who are all fighting for the one cause. They have been first class.”
And the 44-year-old is relishing his fourth game against Rangers this season as he looks to maintain what is an unblemished record against the Ibrox side.
“I have really enjoyed them whether it has been here, Ibrox or Hampden,” he said.
“It’s our game here and I will look forward to it. It should be an exciting day for us.
“We have played very well in the games and I know the players that have played in those games have been first class. They are always tense games but we will look to go into it, play well and get the result. It’s arguably the biggest derby in the world.
Read more: Kieran Tierney on why Celtic legend Tommy Gemmell will always be the club's greatest left-back
“Everybody wants to see it and be involved in the occasions. For us, it’s another chance to get another win.”
Erik Sviatchenko believes that the magnitude of the occasion has the games against rangers on a par with the pulsating Champions League nights in Glasgow.
“It is amazing,” he said. “It’s the biggest thing – that and the Champions League. It’s a really good advert for Scottish football. I have said that before and I think those games have their own lives but we have given it our touch the past few times and we’ll try to do that again.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel