The quest for seven in a row has done something to the media.
They are losing their minds over it as we creep towards the end of the campaign. Over the last few days, they have levelled up the pressure on Brendan Rodgers and our team, believing they see, in our recent loss of form, the opportunity to turn fans against the side and put them on the defensive.
This is the standard tactic. They have no shame whatsoever.
The pressure is coming from multiple directions, and in multiple ways. But it all amounts to the same; our club is in the crosshairs. Cast doubt on the manager, on the commitment of certain players, sow some dissention in the ranks and the whole Celtic project is under threat.
I knew this day would come; it was inevitable the moment we won the treble last season. They saw an unbroken series of title wins, and no end in sight. They have been waiting for signs that we, that the manager, was vulnerable and now they’ve spotted their moment.
The month so far has been ridiculous.
Don’t expect them to lessen the pressure unless we turn up and deliver big time on Sunday, and perhaps not even then.
This is how they’ve gone about it.
Talking Up Sevco And Putting The Pressure On Us For Sunday.
I remember the last time we were chasing teams in front of us in a league race. The pressure was all on us. Why would it not be? We were the side that had to win all of our games and hope for a slip. Because the slip is out of your hands; where the pressure comes is in being ready to capitalise on them. You have to win, and keep winning.
Because otherwise it’s over.
Sevco goes into today’s game under pressure.
If they drop points, then any result at Pittodrie is bad for them. Any result. The media would rather ignore that fact. This entire week has been about how it’s Celtic who are under pressure, the team with a nine point lead.
This is a complete inversion of the standard coverage. Look at title races anywhere in Europe; the chasing team is the one that’s under the pressure. All the top side has to do is keep on motoring along. Not here in Scotland.
You would think the title was in Sevco’s hands instead of ours and that any defeat would plunge us into crisis. It does not matter if we drop points at the weekend if they don’t win. If they fall further behind then it will be done and dusted, and that will be the case whether it’s this weekend or next or the one after that …
Sevco simply has to keep winning, and hope for a miracle.
The pressure is all on their club … but that’s not the way the media is spinning it.
There Have Been Serious Attacks On Brendan, From Multiple Avenues.
Over the last seven days, the Scottish media has asked if the “Brendan Bubble” has burst.
They have promoted a suggestion that he should resign before he is shamed by inevitable failure because “Sevco are coming.”
His record as a manager has been questioned again, casting back to his days at Liverpool.
And at the same time he’s been linked with English clubs.
They need to make their minds up; is Brendan Rodgers a dud or is he a genius who simply can’t take Celtic forward and is simply marking time until he returns to England?
Some of the coverage of this been unbelievable.
Some of it has been disgraceful.
This week, the national press attacked him via his wife’s former husband, by publishing lurid details from the inquest into his suicide. Some of the publications shamefully sought to suggest that it was Brendan himself who was responsible for it. Of all the low-order tactics, it was one of the worst I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t even going to write about it, but it fits a pattern.
On top of that, his shrieking stalker in The Daily Star continues to look for any negative story he can find so he can blow it up into a hysterical headline. If he was the only one I would ignore him, but the press smells blood and is now making Brendan the target.
It was good to hear him at the press conference today, telling the hacks that he continues to believe in himself and the team and that he continues to see his future at Celtic in spite of the European setbacks. He is preaching realism, pragmatism, calm.
This is all to the good. The media must hate it.
They will not stop putting him under the spotlight though. In fact, they will increase the pressure.
The Media Holds Up Our Loss Of Form, And Ignores The Form Of Other Teams.
Celtic’s form has been ropey all season, but look at the league table. That’s our name at the top, that’s our club with a nine point lead. The media wants everyone to focus on how poorly we’ve played; well hell, in spite of that we’re still in a very secure position.
The form over the last month has not been brilliant, but look at our so-called challengers; can anyone say their own form has been all that much better? Sevco are getting all sorts of plaudits for their start to the year … that start includes a loss at home to Hibs.
Aberdeen have been all over the place. They have an inability to get results when it really matters. Neither they nor Sevco were able to capitalise when we lost to Kilmarnock. Graeme Murty is hailed as some kind of genius; his side has lost seventeen points since he took over there, a statistic that should horrify the press and their support.
It doesn’t seem to.
All the negativity surrounds us and how badly we’re playing; we’re not worse off in terms of our lead than we were before the break.
Honestly, I sometimes think the press in this country operates in a parallel realm from the rest of us.
They have a total inability to face up to reality. Sevco’s “title push” is based on sheer fantasy. They are nowhere near as good as they are being hyped. Their manager is a long-ball merchant, a throwback to the 1980’s, influenced by people like Jimmy Nichol.
He has made them a slightly more aggressive unit going forward … but teams who keep it tight against them and hit on the break will always have a chance. Teams which approach games against them without fear will beat them, as Hibs have twice already.
We might not be brilliant this season, but we’re not top of the table by accident; the form of our so-called rivals is not that hot either and there’s no sign of it stabilising.
Rogic For The Off Now? Just Another Of The Stories Linking Our Players With Moves.
When it comes to knocking a team off its game there is nothing quite like linking its players with moves here there and everywhere, and Celtic has had this all season long. Even with the window now closed until the summer it continues; Tom Rogic has allegedly turned down Celtic’s first offer of a contract.
Nobody points out that Tavernier did the same, but signed an improved deal just last week.
Celtic insiders expect Rogic to sign too.
But that’s not the point; they’ve got their one day headline and cast more doubt on the future of a key member of our squad. That’s the plan, and it comes as Rogic regains fitness and gets back into the team. Coincidence? Absolutely not.
The minute Dembele starts scoring again he’ll be linked with a move away.
If Edouard starts to score we’ll be told how he’s out of our price range.
Roberts is fit again; the first good game he has will spark media stories of how he’ll be gone next season.
And on top of this, there’s already pressure on Musonda and people like Sutton don’t help with his nonsensical comments during the game on Thursday; the kid is here for 18 months. He will see plenty of game time.
The idea that he’s already “dropped down the pecking order” is sheer nonsense of the kind Sutton excels at sometimes.
Today The Media Is Putting Pressure On Aberdeen To Get Something From Our Game.
The most amazing headline of them all came today, with an attack on Aberdeen’s record against the “bigger clubs.”
This is unbelievable.
The media never once questioned their commitment or desire before Sevco games. In the aftermath it was all about how Graeme Murty had got the best of McInnes; this blog has been saying for well over a year that the Aberdeen boss is a bottler, but the press picked this weekend to make that suggestion.
Honestly, it’s ridiculous how far they are willing to go.
Today they are trying to give McInnes a jolt by casting up his previous record; you know what?
I’m fairly sure he doesn’t need reminding. I’m fairly sure their fans don’t need reminding.
Three defeats this season so far at the hands of the Ibrox side; that is down to McInnes’ total inability to focus properly when he comes up against them. Some of those performances were scandalous. And yes, we’ve beaten them 3-0 twice already this season … but whereas McInnes is now being questioned over that, Murty is hailed as the tactical genius who has turned his team around. The media has no shame whatsoever.
Finally, There’s Scott Brown And The Continuing Campaign Against Him.
The whole of this season has been one attack on Scott Brown after another.
The media knows that Brown is the beating heart of the Celtic team, and I don’t expect that the attacks on his record or his temperament will end whilst he’s in a Celtic shirt.
He missed the last league game because of suspension; he is now a target for referees and this was not helped when Craig Levein was allowed to accuse him of cheating. The SFA should have carpeted the Hearts boss for that, but of course they didn’t.
That was the nudge and wink from their offices.
It is open season on our captain.
He will be under the microscope for every tackle, and all the while clubs will continue to kick us off the park, and in particular Kieran Tierney.
I wrote about this last week, the way refs allow our players to be rough-housed all over the pitch … the flipside of that is that Brown is watched like a hawk and not just by the officials, but by a media that’s dying to see someone else holding the league championship trophy when this season comes to an end.
Their strategy is transparent.
We Are On The Verge Of Making History. They Will Do Anything To Stop Us.
Never think that the media does not influence title races and events.
They wage campaigns of constant destabilisation against our club, even as they ignore glaring deficiencies at Ibrox and refrain from writing the big stories over there which are begging to be dragged into the light.
Would we get away with so little scrutiny if our club was run like theirs?
Of course not.
During this season, the media was forced to invent controversy when the BBC did a scandalous piece on our majority shareholder Dermot Desmond, even as a genuine crook was defying a court order from the Ibrox boardroom.
“His case is under appeal,” The Record wrote just last week … a distortion of the truth which is quite blatant, a naked attempt to mislead.
Our club posts record profits, but we’re told that Sevco is “closing the gap” in the same month they went running to Wonga financers.
You could not make this up.
All of it is designed to create a feel-good factor over there whilst people chip away at us. Yet we sit top of the SPL, and in the quarter finals of the Scottish Cup. The League Cup already rests on its platform in the Parkhead trophy room.
Seven in a row is yet to be secured, but we are in pole position.
They will do anything to stop us from getting there.