SUPPORTERS may be enthralled by the nip and tuck of this season's Premiership title race to date, but Boli Bolingoli says that the Celtic players couldn't care less what Rangers are doing.
The left-back returned to the Celtic side for the win over Aberdeen after a short spell out through injury, and he praised the focus of his teammates as they responded to Rangers' impressive win against Hibernian on Friday night by restoring their five-point lead at the top.
And he says that Celtic's sole focus now is picking up three points against St Mirren on Boxing Day to ensure they go into the Old Firm fixture three days later with that advantage still intact.
"Mentally we are very strong," Bolingoli said.
"We just try to do our job you know.We try to do our job in such a way that we win every game,
"What Rangers do is good for them, but it’s not important to us. We just need to keep our position as number one and hopefully we can keep it as long as we can.
"It’s not just about Rangers. The league is 12 teams and it’s not only playing against Rangers that is important. Every single game is important, starting with St Mirren on Boxing Day.
"After that we will see what happens against Rangers, but first we must have a rest and then focus on the next game.
"The season is very long. It’s only December now, but if we can get to the winter break as number one in the league it will feel like a good plus point for us. Then we can start again refreshed for the second part of the season.
"If we have an eight point lead over Rangers [by the winter break] that will be nice, but we are not looking at that now. We are not thinking too much of that. We are just taking it game by game.
"To win every game is the most important thing to to and then, yeah, at the end we can see how many points we are in front."
Bolingoli admits he has never experienced the pressure he is under at Celtic to win every game, but he believes that is what is bringing the best out of him and the rest of his teammates.
"Not like here at Celtic," he said. "Of course it was a bit like that at Brugges. But I wasn’t playing all the time there like now for example. So this feels different.
"I actually feel more of the pressure here that we have to win every game. But I can’t complain, it feels good. As a player you want to win every game and here at Celtic we know we have to.
"Pressure is always good if it’s healthy. It can push you up and make you perform.
"You see the whole team is doing well."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel