Let’s be honest, here. Scott Brown was at the wind-up when he claimed that Aberdeen will be Celtic’s main challengers this season for the title.

Rangers will give Celtic a run for their money this term, I am pretty sure of it. There is a danger that Scott is playing the Joey Barton game by trying to antagonise the other side and to be honest all it does is start stoking things up ahead of the first game between the sides.

To me, the best place to do the winding up is in your own dressing room when you can say what you like. I don’t think it is the right way to go about it by getting into a public slanging match.

In my day we tended to say less and do more.

Maybe this is me being old-fashioned but I do think that the best course of action tends to lie in doing your talking on the pitch.

In any case, Celtic are off to Tynecastle tomorrow afternoon and I think you want to raise the curtain on the campaign with a solid showing and all three points. Hearts never make it easy for Celtic but you can be assure of a cracking atmosphere and hopefully a good game.

I do think it is important to try and hit the ground running where the league is concerned and I suspect that because of the qualifiers they have had to play that Celtic will be that little bit fitter than the Hearts players, which could give them an edge.