Gordon Strachan insists that he's too long in the tooth to be worried by recent performances which have seen the champions lead at the top of the SPL table whittled down from seven points to only two "If you said to me after the first Rangers game that we'd get to this period of the season with an advantage I'd have been delighted." said the Celtic boss "We have that at the moment. It's for other people to get worried or panic about the last couple of weeks. It's up to us who have seen it and done it all before to know that it's a waste of time."
"The excitement in football comes from the media getting excited, and then making other people excited, or getting them nervous. We have to stay above all that." continued the manager "We understand the media's business and we understand the excitement of being a fan, because you do go emotionally up and down. For us, as coaches and players, we have to stay at a level where, when we're seven points ahead, we don't get too excited. Likewise, if we're seven points behind, we don't get too disappointed. We go along understanding the reality of the situation.
"After 22 games, the stats tell you that we're top of the pile." said Strachan "We're in the semi-final of the League Cup and we're still in the Scottish Cup. That's as healthy a position as we've been in at this point of the season since I've been at Celtic. Normally, we're out of one cup by this point. Leaving aside all the nonsense that goes on, you collect all that and think, 'We're not bad'."