I posted a picture on my Twitter account earlier this week of myself and Neil Lennon celebrating a victory en route to a Uefa Cup final.
I read all the replies – and most of them were a mixture of positive messages and people making reasonable points about the current situation at Celtic.
There were, of course, the other ones from a few folk who really do have short memories.
Let me start by saying the scenes outside Celtic Park on Sunday evening were incredibly disappointing.
— Robert Douglas (@Robert__Douglas) November 30, 2020
People are perfectly entitled to have their opinions on their club and their manager but the protests went far too far.
Neither me, Lenny or Chris Sutton is daft enough to think that the pressure isn’t on him in a big way – and that performances and results like last Sunday’s against Ross County aren’t anywhere near good enough.
But my Twitter post was a personal way of me showing support for a friend who has supported me and my charity.
He mixes with everybody at our events. It’s not just a Celtic thing.
He’s a human being first and foremost and the reaction against him has been so over the top.
As a bare minimum Neil Lennon deserves respect.
Do people not think about all the things that Neil has had to go through in the past away from football? There are short memories on that front as well.
I hear a lot about folk saying: “It’s only his old team-mates getting behind him.”
But that what real team-mates and real friends do. And it was one of the big reasons we got to that Uefa Cup final in the first place!
I would certainly take it on the chin to back my mate every day of the week.
Talking of mates, I’ve obviously got plenty who are Dundee fans.
Arbroath’s trip to Dens Park to face my old club is the first one I look when our fixture list comes out and Saturday’s game is a huge one for both teams.
It isn’t mind games to say that the pressure is on Dundee.
James McPake and the players know they need to start closing the gap on the top sides in the division quickly, and we want to make this as uncomfortable an afternoon as we can.
To do that, we have to produce a typical Arbroath performance of last season.
The good news for our supporters is that I feel we’re very close to it.
We were unlucky against Dunfermline last weekend and we’ve got plenty to build on.
If we can produce that for 90 minutes then I think we’ll have a real chance of getting a result.
I’ll obviously be able to give a more considered opinion on how Dundee compare to the other promotion contenders after Saturday.
We’ve played Hearts and Dunfermline now and although we lost to both, we were in the games right until the end and could definitely have got better results in them.
Realistically, I still expect Hearts to pull clear at some point when you look at their strength in depth.
As far as Dunfermline are concerned, they’re stronger overall than they were last season and a lot of their goals have been scored from set-pieces.
But the biggest factor in their favour is confidence. And in a league season as short as this one, that is even more important than usual.
There has never been a better year to make a fast start.
