The Gap Closes

Just days after Rangers' striker Nikica Jelavic declared to the Scottish Press (who reported it gleefully) that Rangers lead in the SPL should be enough to see them over the line, the gap has been cut. Should Celtic win their game in hand, a home match against Dunfermline, scheduled for this Wednesday, the gap will be seven points.

Should Celtic then win on Saturday, in another home game, against St Mirren, the gap is down to four. Rangers will then face a tough away tie against Kilmarnock the following day if they are to restore their seven point lead.

Do Jelavic and Co. still think they've done enough?

At Celtic, the task ahead of us is clear. We need to keep putting points on the board, week in week out, if we're going to claw it back. A former manager, speaking in the ESPN studio before the Inverness game, a man who has been over the course before, successfully, told us how it can be done.

Gordon Strachan's Celtic team which won three-in-a-row came back from a seemingly insurmountable deficit to take the title on the last day, and the hugely successful, experienced manager had good advice for Neil Lennon and the Celtic players when he said the task is simply one of eating into the lead a little bit at a time, a couple of points a month, until Rangers start to feel the pressure on their own shoulders.

Perharps that pressure is begining to tell. If Celtic can cut the lead to four and Rangers slip against Kilmarnock, the Ibrox men will be looking at a schedule from now until the years end which finishes with a 28 December visit to Celtic Park, where a home win would put real pressure on Ally McCoist and Craig Whyte going into the crucial January transfer window.

The weekends results went our way. Now, anything can happen in this race for the league flag.

The pressure, for the first time in a while, is on the team across town.

James Forrest