How Celtic dressing room reacted to Rangers sacking Philippe Clement as Alistair Johnston names where 'focus' really is
Alistair Johnston insists the Celtic squad have too much Treble tunnel vision to start peaking over the Glasgow football fence.
The Hoops ace knows there’s turmoil across the city with Philippe Clement packing his bags at Rangers on the back of Saturday’s latest shambles against St Mirren. But Johnston is convinced the Parkhead group won’t take their eyes off the ball with major prizes on the horizon. There is major upheaval at Ibrox with a new caretaker coaching staff in place and talk of a takeover dominating headlines. It’s business as usual for Johnston and co though as Celts look to for norma service to resume following their Premiership defeat at Hibs.
The Canada star said: “For us, it's just more of what we've been doing. We're very good at keeping things in-house, not listening to outside noise, not caring really what's going on around the world, around the league. We've really just got to focus on ourselves. And at the end of the day, if we take care of business and we play our football, we will win the things that we want to win.
“So that's kind of our focus – just taking it day by day, match by match. You put that Hibs one behind you and now, look, it's another match right away, Aberdeen at home, another good test. Let's go out there. How can we impose ourselves on them? Find a way to get a big result at home, get ourselves back on track, and then go from there.
"So again, we're not really focused on the table. We're not really focused on exactly how many matches are left. We know that we're into that final stretch. We want to be in a really good place so that when the sun finally comes out, that we're really kicking into another gear and sprinting through that finish line.”
Celtic dropped points at Easter Road but were let off the hook by Rangers as time was finally called on Clement following their dismal defeat to the Buddies. But Johnston wasn’t watching on with his fingers crossed their nearest rivals tripped up again.
He said: “It's not something that, honestly, we really lose too much sleep over one way or another at the end of the day. We were just frustrated with our own performance.
“Obviously, you see what happens around the league. But at the same time, we knew no matter what goes on, it's in our hands.
“If we take care of our 11 matches left, if we get the points that we want and we expect to get out of it, it doesn't matter what other teams do, win or lose or draw. At the end of the day, we're still just looking back on that Hibs one.
"That's what we think about on the Saturdays. What could we do better there and how can we change that so that when we come out against Aberdeen, that we're flying and ready to put in a better performance than what we did on the weekend.”
Saturday’s defeat was a controversial one, mind you – and Johnston was in the thick of it. He thought he’d teed up Daizen Maeda to level until VAR officials ruled the ball had gone over the byline in the build up.
Camera replays didn’t do much to prove it either way – and that’s why Johnston is convinced VAR should not have got involved. He said: “I felt like it was in. Obviously the official on my side thought it was in and everyone in the park thought it was in. I still have to see an angle which proves with 100 percent certainty that it was out.
“And if that's the case, then normally you should go with what the officials that are at the pitch, who are making decisions and are paid to make decisions, have gone with. So I think that's kind of the frustrating thing with how it was overturned.
‘With VAR, if they're to intervene there, there has to be a clear and obvious error. And I don't think that we have, whether it's not in the budget or whatever, the camera angles exactly where they need to be. The best camera angle I actually saw that was sent to me was from someone in the stands, which is kind of mental when you really think about it.
“For me, if you're going to do VAR, you've got to do it the right way. It's not going to be a coin flip again, whether that was in or out.
“And I think that's kind of as a player pool, not just as a Celtic player, but any player around the world, that's just kind of what you want from the referees and from VAR. Ideally that's what VAR is supposed to implement, a level of consistency.”
None Celtic fans were left wondering why the Hoops got their knickers in such twist over the incident though. After all, Brendan Rodgers’ side are still 13 points clear at the top of the table and well in the hunt for a domestic clean sweep.
It’s just that defeats don’t sit well with this squad, regardless of how it comes about.Johnston is determined to get straight back to winning against Aberdeen tonight and he said: “We don't like losing games at all. I mean, I think that's something that is pretty ingrained in the Celtic DNA.
“But again, it's the fact that it was just one of those ones that we're not 100 per cent sure why that call was made, but to be fair, I think we all made peace with it pretty quickly. There’s a reason why Aberdeen started off the season so well, they can beat anyone home or away. We’re expecting a difficult match against another team that is picking up form.”
