Former Hoops star remains confident Celtic win league despite circumstances as mentality factor trumps rivals
The former Celtic and Kilmarnock man believes the squad will emulate the heroics of the past four seasons in the Scottish Premiership.
Celtic may be six points behind Hearts with just nine games to go in the SPFL Premiership, but Greg Taylor thinks his old team have enough in them to be crowned champions again come may.
The defender, who won five league titles during his time at Celtic Park before moving to PAOK in the summer, concedes that it’ll be a ‘difficult’ task against The Jambos but thinks the experience and winning mentality of the current Hoops squad will be enough to see them over the line. Going into an exciting run-in, Celtic sit six points behind the league leaders and one ahead of Rangers.
There were shades of Celtic’s winning mentality coming through at the weekend in their penalty shootout victory over Rangers at Ibrox, despite the hosts dominating large portions of the 120 minutes. However, as the League Cup Final against St Mirren in December showed, there are no guarantees in any aspect of Scottish Football this season.
Hoops mentality enough for league glory - Taylor
Speaking on Premier Sports’ Scottish Football Social Club podcast alongside Alan Hutton and Michael Stewart, Taylor admitted that come the end of the season, his comments could be ‘in vein’, but maintains that Celtic still have a good chance of lifting the Premiership trophy despite their inconsistent form thus far.
When asked by Hutton if he thought Celtic had enough quality to win the league, Taylor responded: “I do. I mean it’s going to be difficult. You’ve only got nine games to go now and Hearts are sitting six points clear. As time has went on I’ve still thought that Celtic were still going to win it, but as time is going on, it’s looking more and more difficult, of course it is and you now have to put Hearts down as favourites.
“But I don’t know what it is and I can’t put my finger on it - but I can’t see a way that the league doesn’t finish the way it always has in the last few seasons. And I know that sounds wrong but we’ve got big players coming back, our recent history - you draw on these moments and you’ve got guys that have been there and done it.”
Taylor on returning injured Hoops stars
The former defender went on to name some of the players that have gotten Celtic out of trouble in recent seasons and the impact they could have on the title race run-in. He also thinks that a few players who are set to return from injury could give them a massive boost.
“A couple of season back we were behind Rangers and Jamesy (Forrest) from about February onwards pretty much won us the league and pretty much won us the league himself. He came into an unbelievable rein of form and you can see him even now finding a bit of form here and there.
“We’ll have Alistair Johnston back soon and hopefully Cal (McGregor) and KT (Tierney) will be back soon enough so I could be wrong and this could be all in vein but I don’t know, there’s still something sitting with me that we might have a right good chance still.”