Tommy: Don't Blow 3 In A Row

Mar 9 2008 By Mark Guidi

TOMMY BURNS won six championships with Celtic - but the two that got away still haunt him.

Now he hopes the current Parkhead squad don't go through the pain he endured by blowing their chance of making it three-in-a-row this season.

Rangers are four points ahead of the Hoops and it looks as if the race for the title will go down to the wire.

Burns is excited by the run in but hopes the outcome favours his club.

He said: "When you look back to last year we probably knew early in January that Celtic were going to win the league. We were so far ahead it just petered out.

"It was obviously great to win it but there was a sense of inevitability about the whole thing and it showed in a few of the displays towards the end of the season.

"It wasn't particularly good to watch because the players knew they'd won it and it was just a question of getting over the line. This year it's the way it should be.

"We're not that many points worse off than last year but Rangers have a real steel about them and are not losing many goals.

"It could go right to the last day because both teams have a terrific level of consistency.

"We're probably a bit more open in the way we play the game, maybe a bit more flair while Rangers have a really solid look about them.

"But doing three in a rowis very difficult. We won the title in 1979 then lost it to Aberdeen the next year after we'd been 11 points clear of them in the January.We just frittered the points away.

"We won it again in 1981 and 1982 then in 1983 we lost it to Dundee United by a point after we'd been nine ahead of them.

Once more, we let it slide away. Although I won six medals I still look back and it really annoys me that we threw two leagues away."

Burns (right) has been impressed with the way Walter Smith has turned Rangers around and believes having Ally McCoist beside him has helped.

He said: "I don't know if Coisty is going to be in for the Rangers job after Walter. There may be a long-term plan there to stick him in for that.

"He has this amazing personality for dealing with people. But within that there's a real steel. He must have had that as a player when you remember the criticism he had in his early days at Ibrox.

"He's got that desire to be successful and he really knows the game. I sat with him and Walter with Scotland in big games and you hear what people have got to say and look inside their heads.

"He's certainly got a real insight. It's a great opportunity for him because he can sit in there and learn for a few years and after that he'll be able to go and have a go at any job.

"He could have turned the job down and stayed on working for TV but being a big Rangers man was a part of his decision.

A lot of them are quite happy to sit in the studio and pontificate but they haven't had the responsibility of getting the blame if it goes wrong.

"It's easy to sit there and take the cash and have a high profile without showing what you're made of, so fair play to Coisty because he's put himself in the firing line beside Walter.

"You're never the main target until it's you that makes the final decisions about signings and line-ups but the best thing is to prepare well for that."