{"id":596195,"date":"2025-11-27T01:50:57","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T01:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/596195\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T01:50:57","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T01:50:57","slug":"celtic-and-rangers-mates-blew-up-my-phone-after-hearts-defeat-but-id-be-saying-this-in-dressing-room-ryan-stevenson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/596195\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtic and Rangers mates blew up my phone after Hearts defeat but I’d be saying this in dressing room \u2013 Ryan Stevenson"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former Jambos hero admits in his latest Record Sport column that he knew what was coming after the men in maroon went down to AberdeenHearts’ Pierre Landry Kabore looks dejected<\/p>\n

The fairytale period is over. Now it\u2019s the reality. The business hours of a real title race.<\/p>\n

But, if you think it\u2019s bubble burst time for Hearts<\/a>, you haven\u2019t been watching Celtic <\/a>and Rangers.<\/p>\n

No surprise my phone was red hot after Derek McInnes\u2019 team lost at Aberdeen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I was standing at the side of the pitch as my son was playing against Celtic at Barrowfield and I could feel my pocket vibrating. I knew straight away it was going to be all my Rangers<\/a> and Celtic mates messaging me, having a pop.<\/p>\n

I was expecting it, just as I was expecting Hearts to lose a game. Let\u2019s be honest, Del\u2019s team were never going to go through an entire season without defeat and win the league at a canter.<\/p>\n

Everyone knew that was unrealistic and, as stupid as this comment may sound, I\u2019m not devastated it has now actually happened.<\/p>\n

Obviously I would have been much happier if they\u2019d won and I think they deserved to take something out of the game at Pittodrie, but the monkey is off the back and now it’s a refocus job.<\/p>\n

I loved the hype over the start, but I\u2019m still loving the situation and do you know what I\u2019d be saying if I was in the changing room right now? I\u2019d be saying now we can get down to the business of how we win a title race? How do we get a chance of doing the unthinkable?<\/p>\n

\"DerekDerek McInnes on the touchline at Pittodrie(Image: SNS Group)<\/p>\n

We\u2019re still top of the table by four points, so let\u2019s go and see what we can do now.<\/p>\n

Have we got the balls to go on another run? Because, make no mistake, this is still there for Hearts to pose a real challenge.<\/p>\n

They lost a game. And what? I\u2019ll tell you something, they played better than Celtic and Rangers over the weekend.<\/p>\n

I watched the Celtic game live. I\u2019ve seen the highlights of the Rangers match. If I was in the Hearts squad, I\u2019d be showing the other boys clips of those games because their pair of them were honking.<\/p>\n

Celtic were dire against St Mirren and only managed to get the win because of a brilliant goal from Callum McGregor.<\/p>\n

As for Rangers, Livingston should have had a penalty that could have put them 2-1 up<\/a> and they were, by all accounts, dreadful.<\/p>\n

I would actually be showing the boys this saying: It\u2019s not like the olden days, lads. We\u2019ve got nothing to fear from that pair.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s going to be bumps in the road. We\u2019ll probably lose another couple of games and it is what it is.<\/p>\n

But folk kept saying: Let\u2019s see what happens when Hearts have a bad spell.<\/p>\n

Well that’s one win in four games, so that might just be the bad spell over and still it\u2019s a four-point lead.<\/p>\n

Now you\u2019ll see what it\u2019s all about. This is the actual title charge starting because the first quarter of games are done. Okay, we\u2019ve started in the second quarter and lost, so can we go on another run now? Let\u2019s go.<\/p>\n

The money is off the back in terms of the unbeaten tag and now, like I said, it is business time. Nitty-gritty stuff.<\/p>\n

As mentioned, it had been more storybook than reality through the opening weeks, but all this stuff about bubbles bursting? I repeat, Hearts are still four points ahead.<\/p>\n

In years gone by, I\u2019d have looked at Celtic and thought: Oh no, they are going to go on a 10 or 12-game winning run and blow us away now.<\/p>\n

But, given what I\u2019ve been seeing all season and what I saw from them in Paisley, it wouldn\u2019t shock me if they lost to Hibs at Easter Road on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Rangers are on a wee winning run of Premiership games at the moment, but they are also nowhere near it.<\/p>\n

Hearts have to consign what has happened in the past four games including at Aberdeen into the bin and go again.<\/p>\n

Go to Fir Park on Saturday while Celtic and Rangers are sitting in the house waiting for Sunday games, beat Motherwell and pile pressure onto them again.<\/p>\n

(Image: PA)<\/p>\n

The chance is there to move seven ahead of Celtic again, even if they would have two games in hand.<\/p>\n

If we really want to go and win a league, or even fight for it until the end, this is where it starts.<\/p>\n

The fairytale\u2019s been brilliant and we\u2019ve all been riding on it. It\u2019s been amazing, but can we go now past Christmas, into January, onto the real stuff?<\/p>\n

Honestly, I would get the tin hats on, the rigger boots on and get to work on that.<\/p>\n

I genuinely think they might just have had their bad spell and that they will bounce back again. I said Del wouldn\u2019t let a couple of bad games fester and I still feel that.<\/p>\n

One fairytale might be over. But the Hearts boys shouldn\u2019t be thinking they can\u2019t complete another. Not on the evidence from Glasgow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former Jambos hero admits in his latest Record Sport column that he knew what was coming after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,2628,71562,1102,4884,47959,1946,187382,712,1638,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-596195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-celtic-fc","10":"tag-derek-mcinnes","11":"tag-edinburgh","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-hearts-fc","14":"tag-rangers-fc","15":"tag-ryan-stevenson","16":"tag-scotland","17":"tag-scottish-premiership","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115619161391249697","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}