Celtic’s Sebastian Tounekti relishing ‘crazy’ title tussle

Sebastian Tounekti described the three-way William Hill Premiership title race as “crazy” ahead of Celtic’s trip to Hibernian on Sunday.

With four fixtures remaining, the Hoops are three points behind Hearts and one ahead of Rangers, who travel to Tynecastle on Monday for a games that has major ramifications for the run-in.

Scottish football is enjoying its most exciting title battle in years and 23-year-old Tunisia winger Tounekti, who signed from Swedish side Hammarby in September, said: “It’s crazy. I think you have the expectation when you come to Celtic that maybe it’s always going to be like a two-horse race between us and Rangers, but Hearts have been really good for this whole year, so it’s funny to be in, it’s quite exciting also.

“For us, it’s all about us and trying to take it per match and trying to improve in every game.

“We know that if we do our best and when we are at our best, then we have a big chance to go the whole way.”

On the challenge of Hearts, who last won the title in 1960, Tounekti said: “I think everybody is impressed, you can say whatever you want, but they have been doing really good through the whole season, so credit to them.

“We just have to focus on ourselves. We want to improve and, of course, we want to win it and we have to start on Sunday and win that game.”

David Gray has told his Hibs players to draw on memories of their 2-1 victory at Celtic Park in February as they bid to keep alive their hopes of catching fourth-placed Motherwell.

“This is a brilliant fixture to be involved in again off the back of going to Celtic Park and winning the last time,” Gray said of a match in which Kai Andrews scored an 87th-minute winner following Auston Trusty’s red card for the Hoops.

“The players take confidence from that. But it doesn’t make this game any easier just because we won the last time.

“It will be difficult. Celtic are in form as well just now and going for the title, which shows you the level of opposition we’re playing against.

“But it’s all about what we do and it is another opportunity where, if we put in the complete performance, as we’ve demonstrated at times this season, albeit probably not as consistently as we’d like, we’re capable of beating anybody.

“That’s the level of performance that will be required to try and get us three points this week.”