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Level 5 Mouthpiece Latest Hack To Blast Collins

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Let me ask you this; how many more people can The Daily Record talk to, and ask about John Collins’ comments?

Having gone through every manager in the SPL, and Stuart McCall, they started talking to players.

Now they’re trawling for commentary by pundits and rent-a-quotes who want to make names for themselves.

Today, I have to scorn the writings of Murdo MacLeod.

But before I do I want to take issue with The Record, which is, as per usual, resorting to its own brand of gutter “journalism”.

They didn’t even bother to talk to MacLeod himself; they instead lifting his comments whole off his Ladbrokes News blog.

But hey, they credited that for once.

I’ll get back to them in a while.

Let’s move on to the piece.

MacLeod’s tirade ticks every box for the ludicrous Scottish hack pack.

For a start, the writing is shockingly, horribly bad, like the worst of his Daily Record days writ large.

It is contradictory, starting out by saying he understands where Collins is coming from but still thinks it is disrespectful.

Talk about headline chasing.

If he understands where Collins is coming from and knows what Collins is getting at then he knows full well it isn’t disrespectful at all.

He then checks the “Celtic need Sevco for a challenge” box, which of course invalidates anything further that he has to say as he is simply echoing what Collins did but in a less subtle manner; Celtic are the biggest club in Scotland and don’t really get the same test they get in Europe.

Aberdeen put up a “good fight” last year he says.

This can’t be the same Aberdeen who lost the league by 17 points can it?

Who were effectively handed a running start because we were so poor?

We were sitting sixth in the league in October for God’s sake.

He then really starts to ramble, losing himself in his own dense argument, with crap about how Celtic can’t go signing players from other Scottish clubs and then complain about lack of competition, and that we can’t on one hand slag the quality of the Scottish game and then poach its players.

“You’re saying the rest aren’t good enough, but then you go and sign them?” he asks, in a sentence clearly missing much in the way of editorial scrutiny.

And of course, that’s not what Collins was saying at all.

Maybe it’s me who thinks that this argument – which others have attempted, although most of them with a little more finesse – is a piece of nonsense.

We clearly signed a few of the best players in this league, players who were stand outs.

Not every Scottish player is of the calibre of a Gary Mackay Steven or a Stuart Armstrong, so using them as some kind of benchmark for the rest simply isn’t going to fly at all.

There’s a reason we went for them and not, for example, John Rankin.

Furthermore, Collins wasn’t complaining about the level of competition.

How many more times does that have to be said, over and over again?

He was commenting on the gulf in quality between Scottish teams and those we play in Europe.

That’s all. Simple.

As to this notion that it will be our “own fault” if we fail to go through; who else’s fault would it be?

Collins wasn’t attempting to offer us an alibi here. No-one was.

All in all, this has to be one of the worst examples of “journalism” I’ve ever read in my life.

Appalling in every single way, and Ladbrokes must have money to burn (of course they do!) if they are paying him to write this kind of crap.

All the furore over this really does piss me off.

Because, as I said in my piece for On Fields of Green last night, the overwhelming smell that comes off of all this is hypocrisy.

If the issue here is Celtic’s disrespect for other Scottish teams – even after Collins said, explicitly, that he was not intending to be disrespectful – then we’ve done no more than the hacks themselves do day after day after day after day.

And MacLeod isn’t immune to the hypocrisy disease himself.

Underneath his incontinent badly written rant about Collins is another badly written piece, part of the same “column”.

You want to know what the man who is castigating our assistant manager for having no respect for Scotland’s clubs published on the same page?

An article entitled “If Sevco sign Scott Allan the Championship title race is over.”

There we have it then.

No point in playing the games now.

If that deal goes through (it won’t, and he says that himself, which kinda makes me wonder what the point was) then wrap the trophy up and drop it off at Ibrox.

No need to bother with the season.

Need I labour the point, about treating teams with disrespect?

MacLeod and The Record, of course, have history.

He wrote a column for them for quite a while, and there’s one other connection that makes me wonder if this piece is part of a concerted attack on Celtic just for the sake of it.

MacLeod is one of a number of ex-players and ex-hacks who helped to launch Level 5 PR, the company run by two ex-Sevco employees, one of whom is Jim Traynor.

They are currently working as the PR arm for the club and for Dave King.

Maybe I’m just paranoid.

Or maybe I can smell something in the air that stinks even more than hypocrisy.

(To read the article on On Fields of Green – John Collins & The Hypocrisy Of Our Press – click on here.)

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  • Gerard O'Donnell says:

    Another well made point, James; albeit a sermon to those who read and understand. As far as the great unwashed are concerned it will fall on deaf ears
    Hypocrisy is an understatement. When investigative journos ought to be asking probing questions, like…where is the NOMAD, or the AUDITOR, or the Over Investment, the StockEXchage Listing, or even the WAr CHest, they try to deflect attention by focusing on having a pop at all things Celtic.
    I claimed in an earlier response to you that I had no time for apologists such as Peter Martin or Keevins. I’m afraid that too many of them have forgotten their past and joined the ranks, eg CHarlie Nic, Andy Walker, Davie Provan and of course McLeod.
    They surely don’t think we are as stupid and gullible as the Zombies, eh?

  • Wullie McCaffrey says:

    No one with a modicum of common sense could take these morons seriously. After all this is the rag that printed ” Celtic fans refused entry to Iraq for pissing at the side of the road” Investigative journalism at its best bla bla bla FCK them all HH.
    TBCCSC

  • seldomsober says:

    What I can’t understand from Celtic is why they even speak to the press, when they know what is said will be twisted to suit the smsm.
    W

  • John adams says:

    It must have been a different Derek McInnes who said more or less the same thing as John collins, a few weeks ago after the Rijeka game, he said “No-one will test our discipline domestically like that and their movement and swiftness of their play was excellent”. Was this not disrespectful to celtic and every other team in the league. Where is the witchunt to get everyone and their granny to throw their toys out the pram over this comment ?

  • Monti says:

    Totally agree with John Collins and I hope he keeps the comments coming.

    HH!
    Remember John, if you’re annoying them, you’re doing something right!

  • Therese Marie Storrie says:

    Their hypocrisy knows no bounds I would never lower myself to buy an issue of any of the mediocre rags They dont even try to hide their bias Keep up the good work James -shared on twitter

  • mulsiebhoy says:

    I remember Lenny responding to criticism from Turdo a couple of years ago. He quite rightly pointed out that Turdo is only ever at Celtic Park when Henrik is in town (Henrik’s a free meal ticket for him ) Was in a masonic hall in Dennistoun for a birthday party once, and Turdo’s photos with former dead club’s players were adorning the walls.
    H × 2

  • Andy says:

    I stopped listening to McLeod many years ago, Lenny had his card marked.

  • Vincent Doherty says:

    He’s a supporter of the Conservative and Unionist Party to give the Tories their full title. What more is there to say. A hideous, odious Tory toad!

  • Andy says:

    I couldn’t give a flying flock (of sheep) whether or not Aberdeen or Dundee Utd have anything to say about selling players or challenging for a season. None of that matters because what John Collins Das talking about was players able to react quickly enough with 10 seconds of brilliance, flair or creativity to pounce on a moment of weakness when our defence lost their way for a moment. Quit the whinging and encourage creative freedom in your young attacking players.

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