Tony Mowbray insists Kilmarnock cup tie just as important as any other game

Published on Thursday 11 March 2010 22:04

IT IS the only competition Celtic still have a realistic chance of winning this season. But as far manager Tony Mowbray is concerned, tomorrow's Active Nation Scottish Cup quarter-final tie away to Kilmarnock is just like any other match.

The Parkhead club have slipped 13 points behind Rangers with only ten games remaining in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League title race.

The popular belief is that the Scottish Cup offers the Celtic manager his only hope of picking up silverware this season as well as the chance to avert the pressure that would surely come to bear with a trophy-less season.

Mowbray, however, does not believes tomorrow's match has taken on added significance.

Intent on playing down the trip to Ayrshire, where his side's SPL hopes suffered a debilitating blow last month when they lost 1-0 in loan signing Robbie Keane's debut, Mowbray said: "The club tries to finish every season with a trophy – it's no more important or less important this year.

"Every season we try and win every competition we are in and every year we try and win the Scottish Cup, it is big part of the club's history. We strive to win every football match. That's the aim.

"There are ten games still to go in the league and we will keep fighting on that front and try and win them all. But this cup game at Kilmarnock is not more or less important than it always has been at this club."

Mowbray insists he is at ease with the "hysteria" he claims is currently surrounding the Parkhead club and himself as the league title appears to be heading over the horizon.

"Pressure on football managers has always been there and the bigger the club, the greater the pressure," the former Hibernian and West Brom manager said.

"It has become more intense as the media has grown. That's what football is and you shouldn't complain.

"I'd like to think I sit here and complain too much. I like to think I'm pretty comfortable with it and the hysteria that the Scottish football media, especially in the west of Scotland, like to build to a crescendo. It doesn't really interest me. Everyone else seems to get concerned about it, but I just get on with the job.

"You work very hard for six years to get the opportunity to manage such a fantastic club with huge expectations and when you get here you shouldn't be moaning about it. You have to work very hard and try and get results and win trophies.

"This weekend too we strive to edge towards a trophy. That's the task. Is the pressure on managers? Yes, but there always has been.

"As I said, there is expectation on us every year to get to cup finals, to win cup finals and to have days out at Hampden for the supporters and that's what we will strive to do.

"If we do, great, we are one step closer to a cup final, but Kilmarnock are a decent side and that will make life very difficult for us."