Media Lacks Balance In Coverage Of Ronny & Sevco’s “Special One”

Today, I can exclusively reveal that a guy down in my local boozer says Sevco will win the Champions League by the year 2018.

He has no basis for saying this other than he once went to school with a kid who played in their reserve team, and knows how hard the kid works.

The Daily Record is thinking of giving him four pages to tell his story.

In other news, Chris “Union” Jack has been in touch with Sean Dyche for his views on what Sevco can do to restore their league lead.

Apparently all they have to do is believe.

You see what I did there?

I manufactured not only a headline but a story.

Chris Jack does the same thing for a national newspaper.

Today the press is actually filled with seasonal positivity for Sevco, but The Evening Times in particular.

In a week where we’ve highlighted some of the failings of Ronny Deila, it’s instructive to note that our team is still a point ahead in the title race, has a game in hand and are in the semi-finals of the League Cup.

It is Warburton’s side who have blown a solid lead completely, been knocked out of that tournament already and are about to take on their title rivals in the midst of disastrous form.

This site has written about Celtic’s situation, because that’s what we have to do if we’re going to see our club get better.

But we’ve also highlighted the spectacular tailspin at Ibrox, and looked at how the Warburton revolution is already hitting the skids.

The media only focusses on one of these.

We know which one it is.

They could, if they so chose, find people who’ve worked at Celtic Park or people who’ve worked with Ronny Deila, to tell you how he will turn things around, about what a good manager he is, about how the club will move forward under his control.

They’d rather not.

They’d rather find his every critic and give them column inches instead.

I make no apology for being critical of Ronny … and I have no issue with the media doing it.

I do have issue with their double standard.

Because there are no shortage of “experts” lining up to tell us how “Warbo” will turn it around.

Mark Warburton arrived in Scotland with no managerial pedigree to speak of, save for one season at Brentford – hardly a footballing superpower, with all due respect to them.

Ronny arrived as a title and cup winning boss.

We know which one they were determined to undermine before his feet were under the desk.

We know who they labelled a genius.

When a manager is underperforming – and due to our collapse in form in Europe and our recent record at home Ronny definitely is – criticism is valid, and goes with the territory.

But it isn’t even remotely even-handed.

Warburton, like McCall before him and “Coisty” before him, gets a free ride with the lunch thrown in.

When a Celtic manager is under pressure, the media does everything it can to make that pressure worse.

If there’s a rent-a-gob ex player, like Andy Walker or Charlie Nicholas, someone who can be relied on to stick in the boot, that person will be sought out and their “opinion” canvassed.

When a Sevco manager is under pressure, the only people the media ever seems to want to talk to are those who can put a happy spin on matters.

Sean Dyche is the manager of Burnley.

How often do you think he’s watched Sevco play football this year?

He tells you. Zero.

The last time he saw them play was the pre-season friendly which his side won at Ibrox before the season even began.

His opinion is about as valid as that of the guy down the boozer, but Jack devoted not one, not even two but three separate articles to that opinion, touching on the Sevco crowd, the coaching system at the club and how Warburton couldn’t turn the offer from Ibrox down when it came.

First, his experience of the Sevco crowd is limited to that one match.

Some of us have been exposed to them with a little more frequency and know what they are about.

Second, how in God’s name can you comment, with any depth of knowledge at all, on another club’s internal workings?

And as to the last article … it’s easy to see why Warburton couldn’t turn Sevco down.

He was on the dole.

There were no others offers for his services.

On top of that, due to media hype he would have believed, at first, this guff about them being a “sleeping giant” and doubtless one with money to spend.

The treatment this guy gets in unreal, but it’s the usual for a manager in the Blue Room.

The incumbents at Celtic Park get scrutinised in a very different way and their every action in a very different light.

It’s not a surprise, but it continues to piss many of us off.