NOT knowing your history, or at least ignoring it, is going to be an ironic mantra for Celtic players this season.
There will be no talk of nine in a row in private or public. All thoughts of equalling the record made by Jock Stein’s immortals are to be buried. And no swotting up of what it will mean should the Ladbrokes Scottish Premiership be won.
This is coming from a man who will be elevated to iconic status should he lead Celtic to a ninth consecutive title over the upcoming campaign; ten months which promises to be hugely entertaining.
Scott Brown has seen and done it all with Celtic since he arrived in 2007. More than he could ever imagined and, perhaps, can remember after 12 years and, count them, 526 games and 19 winners’ medals.
So, he knows what it will take. Neil Lennon said last week that the players will never hear him talking about the ‘Nine’ and his captain is happy with the manager’s way of thinking.
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Brown said: “’I think he’s spot-on with that. The more people mention that, and the more it gets into the back of your head, people get a bit worried about creating history.
“For us, we’ve done it the last three years. We’ve done well and that’s because we haven’t thought about winning the league 10 months down the line. You just block it out.
“You can’t worry about things like that right now. We just need to focus on winning as many games as possible and getting into the Champions League. It is a long season. Some people maybe forget about that. You don’t want to peak too early.
“People expect us to win, we need to go out there and show them we are the best in the Scottish Premiership. We have done that over the last eight seasons and we need to make sure we try and do that again this season.”
No team peaks in July. Even the best seasons tend to start slowly, which is encouraging for Celtic supporters because their team, actually make that the squad, are in a far better place than last season.
Most players are fit, the squad is settled when a year ago it was anything but, the goals are coming from all over the park and with Saturday being the start of the league, St Johnstone the visitors on flag day,this is as strong a start Celtic have made, on and off the park for a long time .
The big question, with perhaps two signings still to be made, is whether the team are better than 12 months ago.
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Brown said: “We will find that out over the next few weeks, won’t we? We’ve started well in the Champions League and we want to start well in the league against St Johnstone and push on from there.
“We believe that we’re always getting better each year. We need to make sure that we’re ticking off our goals and getting to the prize at the end of it.
“Look, there is pressure on everyone. When you go to a big club, there’s a reason why you sign for them. It’s because you can deal with the pressure.
“We’ve dealt with the pressure for eight years now and we’ve done it really well. Don’t get me wrong, there have been ups and downs along the way.
“But we’ve made sure we’ve wrapped the league up at times with a couple of games to go. It’s been great. If it goes down to the last game and you still win it, then it doesn’t matter about how many points you’ve won it by. People only remember the name on the trophy.”
Fun fact. Celtic won the league by nine point last season and the one before. It’s been forgotten that Aberdeen closed the gap on Brendan Rodgers’s side before Rangers got in on the act.
Both these challengers have strengthened. So, too, Hearts and Hibernian. However, it’s hard to escape the feeling that what will really count is how Celtic are.
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Brown said: “It’s hard trying to deal with a dressing room of 25-30 people no matter about worrying about everyone else.
“For me it’s about who is in this dressing room and how we turn up weekly. We have a great bunch of lads and we need to make sure that we’ve got good camaraderie on the park as well as in the changing room.
“We have managed to go the last eight seasons which is fantastic for us and we need to push this season the exact same.
“We will be pushed very, very hard again all the way through but we have the players and a manager who has belief in us as well that we can go and do it.”
Put simply, only Celtic can stop nine in a row.
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