Michael Gannon …. aaaah you gotta love him.
I wrote about him the other day, his sophomoric piece on how Sevco’s early European knockout might be the best thing that could have happened to them.
Oh really? With all the attendant consequences that go with it, that was actually a positive? Only a truly deluded individual could believe that. Only a moron would put it into words. Only an editor with nothing better to publish would even contemplate putting it in print.
Ladies and gentlemen, you know what I’m trying to say.
Anyway, Gannon turned in his latest piece today, on our scintillating performance last night, and one line stood out above all others, and it’s this one;
“Lee McCulloch’s side just couldn’t find any answers to the questions being asked by the Hoops young team and there was something a tad distressing seeing second string Celts run amok against another top division side.”
Ha! I’ll just bet there was!
Distressing, indeed, for so many in the press boxes and elsewhere, who saw the future last night and realised that even if top players leave Celtic Park there’s a procession of top footballers graduating from our academy at the present time of whom young Ralston and Miller are only the most obvious candidates. Aitchison is on the periphery of the first team as are others. He, in fact, has already made his debut and a little Celtic history with it.
Gannon and others can feign concern for Scottish football as they like; this is dressed up as exactly that, of course. But they haven’t the slightest concern about it, not really.
The same newspaper has gushed all over the spending at Sevco, and said not a thing about how two of the best prospects to emerge from Murray Park in recent years, both first team players under Warburton – Halliday and McKay – were forced out the door to import foreign unknowns.
That wasn’t even questioned.
When Scottish club decide to give youth a chance, you’d think that would give the media cause to be happy. You’d think they would be overjoyed. But this is Scotland, and an admission like that doesn’t even raise the eyebrows any longer.
Gannon and others are well aware that Brendan Rodgers is working on a very special project here. They are well aware that he’s building something extraordinary.
The pain that you can taste just reading Gannon’s line is keenly felt elsewhere; why do you think the media was so keen to give Mols and his dumb remarks such coverage last week?
What keeps them awake at night is that Celtic could win the next six titles just as easily as we won the last six. And with a team calling itself Rangers in the league.
This is a problem for the rest of Scottish football; it’s their job to catch us. Kilmarnock appointed Lee McCulloch manager for God’s sake. They clearly have no desire ever to improve. They clearly do not care about growing as a club. They played last night exactly as I would have expected a club managed by Elbows to play and our youth and power and pace destroyed them.
Celtic were exceptional last night and not just for the goals and the all round performance; they were exceptional in that they never took the foot off the gas, even when they were well ahead. This is the mark of a truly fantastic team, one that has now gone 50 domestic games unbeaten. It’s an amazing record, and one that speaks volumes for the work ethic and determination of the team.
And I understand why that makes some people feel nauseous.
Our club is in a better place than it has been in years. It is driven, relentless, with a sense of purpose that flows through everything it does.
The Scottish media has never given us our due; this is how a football club is supposed to work
All the pieces, all the gears, working in tandem. Like a well-oiled machine. Self-sustaining. Not dependent on anyone or anything else.
Do they credit us for that? Do they bollocks.
To read some of the guff that comes out of the media you’d think we lucked into all of it.
Michael Gannon, I feel your pain … and I love it.
The one consolation you can take is that you’re not alone in your suffering.