Bernardo insists Celtic are primed to bounce back after their painful Old Firm mauling
Celtic midfielder Paulo Bernardo has vowed the champions are ready to bounce back from their painful Old Firm defeat at Ibrox.
The league leaders missed an opportunity to move 17 points clear of their city rivals and produced their worst domestic performance of the season so far as they lost 3-0 last Thursday.
Bernardo could not explain exactly what went wrong at Ibrox but insisted that both he and his teammates are already eager to get back to winning ways – starting with Sunday’s Premier League home game against St Mirren.
“It was a bad game for the team, very tough for us,” the former Benfica man admitted. ‘We didn’t play our football and I think they were the best team and deserved to win.
‘I don’t know where it comes from, sometimes it just happens.
Celtic midfielder Paulo Bernardo is determined to make up for last week’s 3-0 defeat at Ibrox
Bernardo challenges Rangers midfielder Ianis Hagi in last week’s match
‘We have to work harder now and focus on the things we didn’t do well on the pitch and make sure that doesn’t happen next time.
‘Certainly, we need to reset. We didn’t play as well as we wanted, so we need to get a response as quickly as possible.
‘It’s our job, we have to go again on Sunday and we have to get a good reaction because we are Celtic and we want to win.
“It’s good that we have a match so quickly, and we need to get a response as quickly as possible.”
Despite the midweek misstep, Parkhead still have a healthy eleven-point lead at the summit and remain a good chance of retaining their Premiership crown.
But the 22-year-old Portuguese midfielder is refusing to look beyond the visit of Stephen Robinson’s men to the east side of Glasgow today.
“The title is far away,” he said. ‘We are now in January, the first (home) match of January, so we are not focusing on the title. We are focusing on the next game.”