Barry Ferguson has claimed that Celtic haven’t had to cope with pressure during their run of domination at the top of Scottish football.
Perhaps the celebrations at the end of 2018 are playing tricks with the memory of the Kelty Hearts manager.
As the old year drew to a close all associated with Ibrox were high fiving after drawing level on points with Celtic thanks to a 1-0 win that broke a run of 11 defeats and two draws against Brendan Rodgers’ side.
The pressure was cranked up further as Jerman Defoe and Steve Davis signed up, jetting out to Tenerife where Steven Gerrard was putting the finishing touches on his title bid.
Celtic were apparently in crisis, unable to sign anyone, the list of injured players was growing by the week as the prospect of an Ibrox title party seemed inevitable.
Three short months later and Ferguson is clutching straws as he prepares for the familiar sounds of Celtic closing in on a third successive treble.
“Let’s not beat about the bush, everyone apart from Rangers fans expects Celtic to win,” the Kelty boss told the Daily Record.
“I’m happy for that to be the case as it means all of the pressure is heaped on Neil Lennon and his players to get those three points but this could be a game-changing afternoon in the title race as a Rangers win cuts the gap to just seven points.
“If they can do that then, well, let’s just say it’s going to make the next few months interesting. Rangers would be in the ascendancy, Celtic are a side who haven’t had to cope with much pressure in the league so we’d see how they would handle that.
“It’s been a good few years since they really had to deal with any kind of title stress and it would be be intriguing to see if it affects them but it’s down to Rangers to get a result which would make that happen.”
It seems that a 10 point swing from the last derby clash hasn’t yet registered with Ferguson, the pressure is on both side’s going into the high noon kick off but only one squad has a history of being able to handle the crunch fixtures.