MICHAEL STEWART has claimed Celtic have deflated the narrative set up during the international break with the arrival of a new boss at Ibrox.

Celtic went to Pittodrie on Saturday to keep up their winning run in the SPFL and maintain their nine-point lead at the top of the table.

Despite Aberdeen’s best efforts to be as negative as humanly possible during a football match, Celtic yet again found a way to win.

The keyboards were already being bashed with ten minutes to go. The headlines were being warmed up about Celtic stumbling the first game back and allowing their rivals back into the title race. 

By the full-time whistle, those copies had been deleted and replaced with ‘Celtic score late AGAIN!’.

Speaking on BBC Sportsound on Saturday, Post Match, Stewart said: “That was a huge goal. When you think about the first game back after this break, Rangers having gotten off to a winning start.

“You could start to see the narrative building of ‘oh, they’ve dropped points, Michael Beale’s in the door, all of a sudden the gap’s going to close, there’s a derby coming up.’

“That’s how the momentum starts to build. Then the narrative changes. Callum McGregor’s goal – all of a sudden, it deflates the opposition straight away and maintains a belief in the Celtic side that they know what they’re doing.”

While Michael is absolutely right, it beggars belief that the team which won the league last season and cultivated a nine-point lead over their rivals during the first half of the season would have their credentials scrutinised so much.

To this point, the bhoys have only lost one game in the SPFL all season. There’s a lot of wishful thinking going on in the media and among Ibrox pundits. Celtic know they haven’t won anything yet, but the lack of respect shown to the Hoops is very telling.

We all know ‘the other team’ were tuning in on Saturday as the game wore on, rubbing their hands at the scoreline, only for them to turn their TV off promptly when Callum McGregor found the net.