David Turnbull insists Celtic will fight until the bitter end in the title race despite defeat to Rangers leaving them trailing their rivals by a whopping 19 points.
The midfielder vowed the champions won’t let their heads drop and throw in the towel after suffering a real blow to their 10-in-a-row hopes after Callum McGregor’s own goal sent them crashing to defeat at Ibrox.
Neil Lennon’s men will spend this week in Dubai at a warm weather training camp to prepare for the second half of the season and Turnbull is targeting a winning run that can haul them back into the fight for the Scottish Premiership.
The Hoops have pushed their next fixture against Hibs back 48 hours due to their trip to the Middle East and will be 22 points adrift by the time they kick off at Parkhead on Monday night if Steven Gerrard’s men can win at Pittodrie the previous day.
But Celtic will have four games in hand over their arch-rivals and with two Old Firm derbies left this season, Turnbull isn’t conceding anything.
And the £3 million midfielder says they can take heart from their dominant derby display before Nir Bitton’s sending off turned the game in Rangers' favour.
Turnbull said: “Listen, the boys can take a lot of heart from the performance at the weekend and we will keep fighting and keep pushing.
“We have a lot of ground to make up and a lot of work to do but you have to remember there’s still a lot of football to be played in the second half of the season.
“Obviously the result against Rangers was not the way we wanted things to go but our heads can’t go down. Everyone will be giving it 100 per cent.
“We’ve played them off the park for most of the game. We played really well and it’s about retaining the belief and kicking on.
“It’s about picking ourselves up and trying to go on that all-important winning run. We need to win as many games as we can. We can’t look at anyone else.
“We need to get results and that’s our aim for the second half of the season. This team has shown it’s more than capable of going on winning runs and we need to find that level of consistency in the second half of the season.
“We need to forget about the defeat, put it to the back of our minds and move on. We will focus on ourselves, dust ourselves down.”
