Celtic stalwart determined to alleviate 'stress factor' after laboured St Mirren win as team spirit key in two-fold trophy hunt
Long-standing defender adamant Celtic dressing room contains enough know-how to secure two trophies to end turbulent season
Anthony Ralston is confident Celtic can grind their way to Premiership glory this season - because there are enough winners in the Hoops dressing room who know what it takes to deliver on the big stage with the stakes are high.
The Hoops remain three points adrift of leaders Hearts with five games left to play after Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s early goal was enough to earn a gritty 1-0 win over St Mirren at Parkhead in a dress rehearsal ahead of next weekend’s Scottish Cup semi-final.
Scotland international Ralston is well aware that Celtic still have an opportunity to turn what has been an extremely turbulent season into a successful end by getting their hands on two trophies.
And the right-back believes the defending champions retain enough stalwarts who carry the added advantage of knowing what is required to land silverware as a dramatic conclusion to the campaign looms.
Asked if the current make-up of Martin O’Neill’s squad is equipped to cope with delivering on both fronts, Ralston responded: “Yes. I’m not within the walls of other squads or in the other teams that are involved but I’m within our walls and within our changing room for training and match days and I know we have a strong mentality.
“We have a great captain in Callum McGregor who has an elite mentality and he has shown that over the years. He’s the one who leads us and we have boys who are behind him and we are all moving towards the same goal as a collective. That is just about honesty and it shows in games against St Mirren where we had to grind out a 1-0 win.
“We have a great squad in terms of having experience, not just myself, we have Cal, James Forrest, Liam Scales, who has been terrific over the last couple of years. We have Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain who is very experienced in terms of his own career, so we have a very experienced group and we need to use that as much as we can.
“We need to help the other boys who have not been in this scenario so we need to help them along the way and right to the finish.”
Celtic urged to find ways to eradicate stress of not killing games off
Celtic made hard work of seeing off St Mirren in yet another laboured display as they failed to build on Oxlade-Chamberlain’s 15th minute strike. Ralston admits Celtic must find a way to eradicate the stress of not killing games off at a time when there is no margin for error.
“We understand that not getting that second goal causes a stress factor within the game,” Ralston admitted. “If you get that second goal then it takes a lot of that pressure away from you.
“Sometimes in football, especially against a side like St Mirren, who you never have a game against when they are not well organised or hard working, so we knew that coming into the game.
“It was always important to get the first goal which we did and it would have been nice to get that second one but we didn’t and the is football. Fair play to St Mirren, they defended as a unit and we didn’t break them down as much as we would have wanted. That is something we can go away and look at.
“At this stage everything is about winning and you always pride yourself on winning as that is what this club is all about. It’s also about looking at what is the next thing after winning, it’s about getting that second goal, it’s about getting the ball up the pitch quicker so there are things we can look at. As a whole we are happy with the win and we will take that forward.
“It would have been nice if we could have killed the game off against St Mirren as we had a few front post chances. Then we had Kelechi Iheanacho’s chance in the second half which could have finished the game off but it’s something we need to look at in that respect.
“We need to look at how we can finish off games more. It also showed at the other end that we have the mentality to see games out. Winning 1-0 at this stage of the season is not a huge disappointment and we will take that into next week with a huge deal of confidence.”