As James has been highlighting over the past few weeks there has been a concerted effort to ensure that only positive stories about Sevco are published in the mainstream media.
If James will indulge me, I would like to take this a little further.
There has been a concerted effort over the past few weeks to insist that Celtic aren’t as good as they were at the start of the season, while the Sevco shambles is gaining strength and momentum.
Now lets actually look at these two points.
Part of this theory rests on an idea that we have lost our form since the 4-3 game at Motherwell. This, according to some, shows that we are beatable.
Mmm, really? Didn’t we win that game? How does coming back from 2 nil down and 3-2 down, to win the game 4-3 equate with defeat? If teams can’t beat us even with two goals of a start how does that somehow suggest we can be beaten on an average week? Surely most football people would say this shows they he grit and ability and even 2-0 down the cannot be beaten.
Not when it is us; a good fight back win is the start of a slide towards eventual defeat.
Since then we have had a draw in Manchester, a 4-1 win and then three one goal wins; how is this losing form? We are winning!! We are averaging 18 shots a game. That’s impressive. There will be games where luck plays a part, but when you are this dominant (18 shots a game) you will score goals.
When you factor in that teams are simply sitting in, even at their home ground, against us, Â that we are trying to break through a wall of 11 professional footballers who would rather not take a hiding from us it becomes all the more impressive that we are maintaining winning form.
The behaviour of those clubs is understandable by the way; their priority is to themselves. It’s just that their containment strategy is being used against us.
On top of this, it seems that we haven’t got out of 2nd gear in any of these games. This could be the players taking their foot off the gas, however I think it’s more likely a response to the sheer number of games we played last month and this one, which would have been daunting for any club.
Alternatively the media narrative is that everything in the garden is rosy and getting rosier for Sevco, who teams started the season thinking they could beat. They are winning games by one and two goal margins, against the might of Hamilton and Ross county I might add.
Certainly they beat Aberdeen and Hearts, but again when you analyse things these games were far more even than has been reported; when they face these sides next time there could very well be the opposite result.
But the media narrative is that these narrow wins prove that things have turned for the Ibrox club.
We’ve heard this before.
Now, on top of it, there has been a promotion of a football song that these fans sing about one of their non-scoring strikers, in an effort to get them to number one. A song the media says t is “theirs” when it’s actually a shabby version of something by the Dave Clark 5, to create a feel good factor.
What is this about?
Its two fold, Celtic are undefeated and there is talk of us completing an invincible season. It might not happen but imagine the hatred and fear that even the suggestion is causing in some sections of our game, both inside football and the MSN? Andy Walker has already broken cover to poo-poo the idea and there will be people actually sweating and who won’t enjoy the festive season at the thought of this.
Factor in the abuse that Ronny D took for not going undefeated; imagine the torrent of bile that will erupt if we do it when a certain other team are actually in the top division, a division they were gonna win, according to some of the more delusional hacks.
Which brings me to the other issue, the derby at the end of this month.
We have been far and away the best team and dominated them in both games so far, but at Ibrox they have their own unbeaten run … and they want to protect it. Imagine we shatter that and do to them at their stadium what we’ve already done at Celtic Park and Hampden; the rumblings might actually cause damage so bad that no one can ignore it. Some within the game simply must do everything to make sure this cannot happen.
We cannot beat them every meeting, god forbid!
Except we can. And we will.
Then this nonsense about the “challenge” will be exposed as just that.
David Campbell thinks the media narrative of our last few games has been typically biased … he knows what they are up to and that it won’t work.