Croatia isn’t known for its comedy scene.
After almost three years in Scotland Borna Barisic is about to collect his first winners medal and is deeply amused.
Last weekend John Kennedy suggested that on their day Celtic had the best squad in the country, having won 12 of the last 13 domestic trophies it seemed a reasonable suggestion.
In the SPFL this season Celtic have come up short but it’s not often that you come up against opponents that haven’t had a player sent off in 34 matches or conceded a penalty.
True, three retrospective red cards have been handed out to Steven Gerrard’s squad but it is quite a stroke of luck that two months after being given Fixed Penalties by Police Scotland five of Barisic’s team-mates have still to be punished.
Back in August Celtic had two matches postponed and Boli Bolingoli suspended 18 days after it emerged that he hadn’t self-isolated after a trip to Spain.
At today’s Ibrox media conference Barisic was asked about Kennedy’s comment with The Sun reporting his reply:
It’s the biggest joke I’ve heard this season. They didn’t win against us in three games and we are 20 points in front of them so it’s a little bit disrespectful to us.
You always need to be realistic. If someone is 20 points ahead of you, you just don’t talk like that. It is disrespectful for all the things we do this season. It is not only from him.
I know a lot of people talking about Celtic’s situation with the pandemic and all of these things.
It’s like we’ve lost five games or we are just five points in front of them. We are 20 points clear in front of them, we didn’t lose a game this year. It is disrespectful to talk about anyone and changes. I am talking about this season.
Bobby Madden will referee Sunday’s match, in February he was pulled out of Celtic’s match away to Ross County after failing to self-isolate when a colleague tested positive after a shared trip to Greece.
