Celtic defender delivers verdict on state of Scottish football
By Danny Wright
Celtic’s Erik Sviatchenko has said that there are no walkovers in the Scottish Premiership, but that he and his teammates should retire if they don’t win the league this season.
The Hoops are currently 27 points ahead of Aberdeen and Rangers and if they keep up their current form they can mathematically secure the league title as soon as March.
Despite this, the 25-year-old launched a defence of the quality of football in Scotland when he spoke to the Daily Record.
“Here in Scotland, our opponents play aggressive football and are good at organising themselves against us,” he said.
“There are no matches that are a walkover – often we just win by one goal.
“We are a flagship for Scottish football at the moment, but teams like Rangers, Aberdeen and Hearts make it a good league as well and it is exciting to be part of it for me. We have respect for our opponents.
“Although we should all probably stop playing football if we don’t win the championship this season!”
The Danish centre-back joined Celtic in 2016 for a fee of £1.5million from FC Midtjylland. He has made 32 appearances for Brendan Rodgers’ side this season which has broken a number of records as their current 30 game unbeaten streak shows no signs of ending.
The Hoops are unbeaten in the league this season and have only dropped points in one game – a draw at Inverness CT in September, the club they beat 6-0 last time out.
Sviatchenko and his teammates will now be looking towards the next match at Celtic Park against Motherwell on Saturday, who have opposite fortunes this season and despite being eighth in the table, they are only three points clear of the relegation play-off place.
Aberdeen play their game in-hand against Mark McGhee’s side on Wednesday night and could cut Celtic’s lead to 24 points with victory.
In other Celtic news, Kenny Burns says Nottingham Forest should sign this Celtic player.
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