Mikael Lustig has revealed that his old Celtic team-mates just wait on the Ibrox title collapse.
Every year they hear the hype coming out of Ibrox, the promises and threats, the incredible testimonials about the quality of the new signings. How close they were last season, how the new one will be different, Lustig has heard it all over the last four seasons.
This season the Swede has observed it from a distance, his title winning run at Celtic halted at eight but with Scott Brown still at the centre of the battle his old team-mate sees no reason for next season to be any different to the last nine.
After celebrating nine the focus of Celtic fans, players and management has moved to ten with Lustig telling the Daily Record that he expects the Ibrox challenge to wilt again next season:
This year they were really strong but we always wait for them to crumble and this year it took a little bit longer than usual. After the winter break there was only one team and that was Celtic.
The Celtic players know they are the better team. They have more quality and that was proved the longer the season went. There are a lot of leaders in the Celtic team and Scott Brown is the best player in the squad. He is out there every day, in every training session, giving 100 per cent.
If you are a young player and see your captain do that, everyone does it. The whole group follows you. It’s not necessarily what he says it’s more the way he acts. It doesn’t matter if it’s a rainy day in December or a sunny day – well it’s not sunny in Glasgow that often – he gives everything in training and you can see his quality throughout the whole season.
A lot of games you need that leader who never hides and always wants to be at the front. But he’s also a very good player as well as the captain. When you play with him it doesn’t matter if you are 1-0, 2-0 or 3-0 up – he’ll still want to play good football for the whole 90 minutes.
When you get older, if you have one or two bad games they say you’re finished. But he’s kept going and will have at least two more years I’d imagine. He’s really fit and is always really up there in the tests that are done.
Celtic will host an online title party on Saturday afternoon including special guests, one of whom might be a certain Swede wearing a police hat.
