Which Idiotic Hack Asked If Celtic Signing Sinclair Was A “Compliment” To Sevco?

Yesterday Mark Warburton faced the media for one of the most surreal press conferences in his time as Sevco boss. There was desperation in the air, sheer desperation, as the hacks struggled to get him to reassure them that everything would be alright, that the club was on a good financial footing, that Dave King’s promises would be kept, that Warburton had money to spend and that he could, if need be, go out and spend millions on a player as we just did.

Of course, Warburton could give them no such assurances.

His club is skint, at least in terms of transfer fees, although they’ve added nine players thus far and want another two. Quite how a club which is already losing money hand over fist can afford this I don’t know – that’s their lookout – but in spite of that, the envy on display at Celtic finally flexing some financial muscle was evident to all. That’s to be expected; once upon a time the Sevco supporters, including those in the press box, followed a club called Rangers and they were often able to outspend us.

It doesn’t matter that they did it with tainted cash, with what turned out to be our money; their ability to do it caused a lot of us sleepless nights.

At no point did anyone ever suggest their doing so flattered Celtic in any way.

Yesterday at Waburton’s press conference he had to refute the idea that Celtic’s signing of Scott Sinclair was somehow an acknowledgement of how great his own club are. He denied that the signing was “a compliment” to his own club.

What?

Who asked such an utterly perverse question in the first place?

I mean, I realise that the average IQ in the media room at Ibrox is slightly lower than the room temperature but this one really takes the cake.

Of all the trawling around for positives that one takes a bit of beating.

Now our transfer policy is predicated on concern over a NewCo who’s own “blue chip signing” is a 33 year old ned who’s done time in stir?

Are these people serious?

There was a whole discussion one one of the podcasts the other day – the media ones – on the tired old subject of whether or not Celtic hired Brendan Rodgers as a response to Sevco being in the SPL. This subject has been just about done to death, but they keep on resurrecting it for reasons passing understanding. It’s supposed to flatter them, and present a view of us as somehow reacting to them rather than charting our own course.

But here’s the thing … it makes no difference anyway. Even if their fantasy was true and we made major epochal decisions like this based on Sevco’s scramble to the top flight, Brendan’s appointment does more than just lay down a marker of our intentions here in Scotland. It has not simply widened the gap between the two clubs – a gap that was already like the Grand Canyon, one cup semi notwithstanding – it has put us quite simply out of sight.

At best, for them, we were saying “Yeah we’ve been marking time until you got here … now we’re going to show you what superiority really looks like.”

What does that do for their fragile egos? In one swoop last week we spent more money than they were able to spend in the four years of “the journey” … and it’s not the first such example. Simunovic, a guy who’s spent more time on the treatment table than he has on the park, cost more than Sinclair did.

Did anyone suggest that signing was a response to them?

Idiots.

Our hacks are amongst the worst in the world, but trying to turn Celtic signing a top footballer into some kind of positive for Skintco is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard of, and Warburton himself was quick to wave the question away. Whoever asked this lamentable and absurd question, their boss needs to have a wee word in their ear.

Celtic are on a different planet from Sevco.

A lot of people are still not quite on board with that fact of life, but it’s in their own interests that they absorb it and fast.

The fantasy world they live in is going to collide with the reality of the one we inhabit … and that’s going to hurt.

In Brendan We Trust.

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