Ten-in-a-row for Celtic, but Samaras wants more

Georgios Samaras has called on Celtic to extend their ten-match winning run to enhance their Clydesdale Bank Premier League title claims.

Celtic defeated title rivals Rangers in the Old Firm derby last week and on Monday won 3-0 at Dunfermline to take a two-point lead at the top of the SPL table. Neil Lennon’s men, who take a break from league duty when they play at Irn-Bru Third Division Peterhead in the William Hill Scottish Cup on Sunday, trailed Rangers by 15 points earlier this season and forward Samaras has told his team-mates to continue the fine form which has seen them overturn that deficit. He told the Celtic View: “So many people were saying the league was over – they thought 15 points was too big a gap to pull back. But we put in some great performances, won some important games and have now won 10 in a row.

“The important thing now is to build on this. We can’t sit back and get complacent, we’ve done the hard part of closing the gap, but keeping up our form will be even harder. We have to win all of our games and January will be a very important month for us.” The 1-0 defeat of Rangers at Parkhead last week provided an added fillip for Celtic. “It was a massive confidence boost beating Rangers, more so than any other club in the league,” Samaras continued. “Everyone in the dressing room felt good about it. We all felt good about ourselves and each other and it was a massive lift for everyone.”

Celtic last dropped points in the SPL at home to Hibs in October. Samaras added: “I couldn’t pick out one game that turned things around for us but if you look back to the game we drew 0-0 with Hibs, we were all very low after that.

“But only a few days later we played in Europe and beat Rennes at home. Then we went away to Motherwell and that was a massive game for us because they were challenging our position in the table. We beat them, and that gave us a lot of confidence. And a few weeks later we beat St Mirren 5-0 at home – that was a really good afternoon. We had just started a run at that time and that pushed us on and helped us a lot.

“There were a few big results for us around that time, and even though I didn’t play against Kilmarnock, coming back from 3-0 down to get a point (on October 15) helped the guys who played. Their confidence grew. We don’t want to be in that position again, though, and hopefully now we will continue this form and not look back.”

Meanwhile, Emilio Izaguirre, Kelvin Wilson and Paddy McCourt all played the full 90 minutes as a Celtic XI were beaten 3-1 by Kilmarnock at the SPL leaders’ Lennoxtown training base. Izaguirre was continuing his recovery from a broken leg, having made his first appearance since August against Dunfermline on Monday.