We're in real title dogfight but I've got a Salem's lot on my mind to keep me occupied

Walks with labrador clear Celtic star AJ’s head as he targets second league title

- FRASER MACKIE

THE first rule of fight club is: You do not talk about fight club.

And now that he’s been roped into the middle of the Glasgow version, Alistair Johnston is learning to come up with some coping devices of his own.

Stay off social media, at all costs. There’s little or nothing to be gained from disappearing down that rabbit hole at a time when the madness is being cranked up to 11 all around.

And if there’s a need to find something else to occupy the mind after training then find a new hobby to while away the rest of the day.

For Johnston, that hobby comes in the shape of his doting black Labrador Salem.

Long walks in the country air are what the Canadian relies upon to escape from the cauldron bubbling up on his doorstep.

And he’ll have been for a few of them over the last couple of days, ever since Celtic’s spell was broken at Tynecastle amid heated accusations of some sorcery going on in the VAR bunker of Clydesdale House.

Johnston’s manager may have been seduced into believing that black magic was to blame for his side’s 2-0 defeat.

But while Brendan Rodgers may get his fingers burned on Hampden’s sixth floor for promoting the idea that some sort of hocus pocus was to blame for this latest slip-up, Johnston is trying his best to block out the building noise.

“Me? I don’t find it difficult,” the full-back said when asked how it feels to be dragged into the hysteria surrounding an Old Firm title battle.