Within our walls- Celtic defender highlights their SPFL title edge

Tony Ralston is convinced that the winning mentality in the Celtic dressing room can deliver the SPFL Premiership title.

With the five post-split fixtures to be played there is only three points between the top three clubs.

Only once in the last 15 years have Celtic gone into the split not sitting in top spot.

Twice in the last four seasons Celtic have cantered to the title with the formalities completed nice and early.

In 2022 and 2024 Celtic clinched the title in the second last fixture. Firstly with a draw away to Dundee United then in a memorable rout of Kilmarnock.

A core of the current squad were heavily involved in those four title wins.

After beating St Mirren on Saturday Ralston told the Daily Mail:

I’m not within the walls of other squads or in the other teams that are involved but I am within our walls and within our changing room and I know we have a strong mentality.

We have a great captain in Callum McGregor who has an elite mentality and he has shown that over the years. He’s the one who leads us and we have boys who are behind him and we are all moving towards the same goal as a collective.

That is just about honesty and it shows in games, like against St Mirren, where we had to grind out a 1-0 win.

We have a great squad in terms of having experience, not just myself, we have Cal, James Forrest and also Liam Scales who has been terrific over the last couple of years.

We now have Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain who is very experienced in terms of his own career, so we have a very experienced group and we need to use that as much as we can. We need to help the other boys who have not been in this scenario along the way and right to the finish.

The inclusion of Oxlade-Chamberlain is interesting.

While working towards greater match fitness he has scored two goals- both of them match winners.

On recent evidence it is hard to make a case for Celtic winning the title.

Experience is usually welcome but it can also turn into weariness.

Over the last 12 months Celtic fans have watched their side lose two cup finals. To teams currently in the bottom six of the SPFL.

Celtic need to discover a new gear if they are to win this season’s title.

Effectively a five match play-off series is about to get underway- hopefully Ralston’s team-mates are about to deliver one more SPFL Premiership trophy lift.