THERE is at least one bottle of champagne at Celtic Park and Lennoxtown which remains resolutely uncorked. When Lisbon Lion John Clark presented Brendan Rodgers with a bottle of sponsored French fizz with the number 27 inscribed upon it back in January in recognition of breaking the Lions’ 50-year record of 26 unbeaten domestic matches, few could have expected this current crop of Celtic players to have more than doubled that tally, as they compiled an invincible run which now stands at 56 ahead of the visit to Ibrox on Saturday.
Those who know these things point out that a Celtic side actually went 62 games unbeaten in the midst of the great war between November 1915 and April 1917, but these are hardly comparable circumstances and this remarkable run will hit the 500-day mark this week. And still that bottle of champagne, given pride of place within Rodgers’ office at the club’s training ground in Lennoxtown, remains on ice.
“It is funny, I see the achievement every day when I walk into the office,”said Rodgers. “I have got this bottle of champagne that was bought by a sponsor at the time where we beat the 26, so it said 27 on it. Now I look at it and think ‘we are up to 56, so we have more than doubled it’.
“Last year, towards the end of the season, it was a great tonic for us,” he added, “But it is an incredible feat by the players and great testament to their focus, concentration and professionalism at their work.
“Any player, regardless of their professionalism, can have a bad day, but how they prepare themselves and how they never slacken. Of course we come in every day as coaching staff to start from scratch and be ready, but it is testament in games to how they could have come off it but they haven’t. We keep pushing forwards.”
And if there are any moments where this current crop are getting blase and complacent, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have the likes of Danny McGrain and Clark himself amongst the playing staff to remind them of a few home truths. “Listen, that humility around the building is always good. Boys like him [Clark[ and Danny, they will sort them out!”
Rangers would dearly love to puncture that bubble tomorrow, a victory which would leave the most ardent fan with something of a sour aftertaste at the end of their invincible exploits, but the Northern Irishman is wise to the challenges of that difficult second season. He know it isn’t just the Ibrox side who have their own individual plan to stop that record in its tracks but he is determined not to let it become a distraction, a millstone around the club’s neck. Regardless of the sundry transfer intrigues about potential incomings and outgoings, the magic is keeping a unified focus about this group, everyone pushing in the same direction. Fifty-six games or not, Rodgers is determined to keep that champagne maturing in the cupboard nicely for some time now.
“We just focus on the next game and never get too caught up or worried about what people are saying about us,” he said. “That’s key to the team’s success. We know the challenges for this season and one of the pitfalls of success is that people want you disconnected. You become a bigger target for teams and people start to talk about your players, but these are all things we anticipated during the summer, so the key for us is to focus on ourselves, focus on our own game and then let our football do the talking.
“The champagne is only there as a memento,” said Rodgers, who has won five and lost one of his six Old Firm matches to date. “It’ll just go away into the cupboard. Hopefully we’ll not open it for a while yet. We just keep going. There’s work to do.”
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