John Hartson has made the claim Celtic fans respected Steven Gerrard while he was at Ibrox and Giovanni Van Bronckhorst will garner similar respect from the green side of Glasgow because of his prior exploits playing for a side emanating from Ibrox.
I like big John, but I have no idea where he’s getting this idea from. Celtic fans didn’t respect Gerrard and found him very contradictory and weasel like for his dealings with referees and what we like to refer to as ‘honest mistakes’.
John thinks the respect was there, speaking to Go Radio as cited by Record Sport.
‘I think from a Celtic point of view, fans respected Steven Gerrard because he won the league so comfortably – and that won’t change with Gio Van Bronckhorst.
‘He knows the blueprint of the football club and he comes in a winner.”
Celtic’s rivals have went through major upheaval, not dissimilar to Celtic a few years ago when Brendan Rodgers left through the back door.
The Hoops managed to stay the course that season because their rivals couldn’t exert enough pressure in the end. The bhoys must learn from that and know if they can keep up the pressure throughout the season, they’ll have a better chance of toppling the Ibrox side.
It’s going to be an interesting run in to the end of this year.
