Today we watched the culmination of a con-job, live on television. As spectacles go, that really was something to see. It was instructive of the game in this country, and telling about the gutless wonders who sit at the top of our clubs.
One of those gutless wonders, Stewart Milne, was in the stand today watching as it unfolded, and from the moment the game kicked off – perhaps even before – he must have had a leaden feeling in his gut about what was about to transpire. It was obvious. It was so predictable some of us called it weeks ago; this was the last act of a desperate farce, and he was its ultimate mark. His supporters are the victims, but the joke is on him.
Stewart “Move On” Milne.
“The game has to move forward.” And this is what moving forward looks like; Aberdeen sitting behind an Ibrox club, having been well and truly shafted. Why am I reminded of the immediate past here? They can play the victim card as they like, but never has a victim been more deserving of that status, never has any victim done more to ensure their own using. We’ll be back to what the media calls a duopoly before we know it.
Except it won’t be, of course, because no Derek McInnes led team is going to touch Celtic now or in the future. The strict second-rater is not going to improve just because he sits in the dug-out at Ibrox. He will remain the guy who signed Nicky Maynard, who Sky’s commentators took great delight in reminding us hadn’t scored in 24 games before today.
When you hear the press tell you what astute signings McInnes has made at Pittodrie, you remember that one. He has signed up more wage thieves than the people who planned the Hatton Garden bank heist.
The scope of this is pretty awesome. As I said in an article on Friday, sometimes you have to swallow your personal feelings about these things and simply admire the gamesmanship, and this is a lesson in how to royally graft another club.
It wasn’t that long ago that Aberdeen were sitting comfortably in second spot. Today we had the incredible spectacle of Sevco leap-frogging them into that spot at their own ground, whilst their own manager is, by everyone’s admission, the guy most likely to have benefited from that result. What’s wrong with this picture? What’s wrong with the whole picture?
None of this makes a shred of sense. First, if you were at Ibrox right now why would you be in favour of spending the better part of £1 million on a guy who’s blown a major lead over your club and been beaten by your stand-in boss home and away, in the space of a week, and today against ten men? You have the better manager right now; that much couldn’t be more plain. Yet everyone in the press is talking as if the deal is done.
But McInnes and his chairman said he was committed to the club just over a week ago, before these two games. In the interim, King dropped a big hint at the AGM and online reports suggest that the terms between manager and Sevco are agreed; tell me how that’s possible? If Aberdeen are aware of those negotiations then Milne sat there in front of the press last week and wilfully lied to his own fans. Why would he? He will look like an absolute mug now if McInnes winds up at Ibrox. But no worse than McInnes will look himself.
Because that’s the other alternative; that those negotiations have been going on behind Milne’s back. Either way, how does end well for Aberdeen, and what kind of message does it send about the future of Scottish football when this can happen so brazenly, so publicly? Andy Walker, commenting on the game, made perhaps the one astute observation that he’s ever made; the last two results, which have plunged Aberdeen into crisis, are good results for their manager if he does, as everyone seems to expect, walk into the Ibrox job.
Something so blatant shouldn’t happen, anywhere in the game, but it’s different here in Scotland; the league’s own sponsor, Ladbrokes, was forced to delete a tweet this afternoon after Sevco had scored the opening goal; here’s the tweet.
And who runs Ladbrokes social media in Scotland? Level 5. Who’s most well known client is the Ibrox club and who’s CEO is often to be found in the Ibrox press room during pre-match interviews making sure that their people – and the media itself – stays on message.
Aberdeen, these people are openly rubbing your faces in it.
They have total contempt for you and your club … and you’ve earned every morsel of it.
What makes it worse is that’s the league sponsor actually laughing at a piece of clear-cut cheating … and that means they’re laughing at all of us.
Even if McInnes doesn’t now end up at Ibrox though, that club has stirred the soup so much and unsettled the entire setup at Aberdeen so thoroughly that it’s job done either way, and if McInnes does wind up there for talks he might well find that the kind of unscrupulous individuals who would pull such a scam aren’t very good at keeping verbal promises either.
When it looks like, smells like it and tastes like it you call it what it is.
Stewart Milne, today is your day.
You broke it, you own it.
This is what the new era of Scottish football you wanted is going to be like … Hell mend you.