Kris Commons is not doing well in his new job. Or rather, he is meeting perfectly the standards of the profession and turning in the level of work we expect from most in its ranks. Which is in no way a positive. In fact, it’s very much the opposite.
This week he penned an article which was frankly excruciating. In it he commended Graeme Murty and his time as Sevco boss, and delivered quite an incredible verdict on his time in the Ibrox hotseat. To cut a long story short, he made the spurious, in fact riseable, claim that Sevco would currently be top of the league had Murty had the job all season.
Not only is that absolutely unsupportable but it’s an insult to Brendan Rodgers and Celtic. It is the type of shite I expect to read from idiots like Chris Jack and Roddy Forsyth. It is unbecoming of a man who seems almost determined to tarnish, in print, the reputation he built for himself on the park in our club colours. That would be tragic in his case, especially as his good lady remains a magnificent ambassador for us and the things that make us special.
Kris Commons may believe he holds some exalted place in Celtic folklore from which to make these stupid remarks; he scored a lot of goals for us, that much is true. So did Charlie Nicholas and Andy Walker. Ask the average Celtic fan what they think of those two.
And Commons is in danger of going down the same road.
The claim itself is stupid almost beyond belief. As I have pointed out on this site many times, Murty has dropped a mammoth 17 points since he got the job. That’s only a handful more than Celtic has in the whole campaign. If he’d had the job longer he’d have dropped even more … and in the event Sevco had looked like genuine contenders who really believes our team would have approached so many of our matches this season in the “devil may care” attitude they did?
I’ve always believed that if a genuine challenge to us did emerge that the players would go that extra mile to hold it at bay. Part of the problem this season might well have been complacency and the rest came down to tiredness and injuries.
Murty has put together some wins. His team is more consistent against the lesser SPL teams and against lower league sides in the cup. Big deal. A few wins against Aberdeen has made him a hero to their fans … their fans are so desperate for heroes they would have anointed the guy he resoundingly beat in those same games.
None of it means a thing next to the cold hard fact that Celtic is top of the league by six points with a game in hand. That did not happen by accident or by fluke. Commons comments are an insult to everyone he played alongside who has had a role in getting us there; it maintains that we are lucky, that we did not do it on merit. We’re in a cup semi final and already holders of the other domestic trophy; maybe we were lucky there too.
Commons is like so many former players who have wound up in the media; no longer young and fit enough to play and who would get found out in management to savage effect, they instead take the coin of media companies to pretend knowledge they never earned at the sharp end. I have heard only a handful of them talk with any intelligence about management and the talent it takes, the rest are Monday Morning Quarterbacks who can’t wait to tell better men where they went wrong.
Commons praise for Murty is, in effect, a not so coded suggestion that Sevco’s part-time coach and long ball merchant is a better manager than Brendan Rodgers; what other conclusion can you draw? He has inferior players, so If Commons is saying he’d have won the title then clearly he rates him as being capable in ways Brendan Rodgers isn’t.
Since I know Commons doesn’t believe that obvious bollocks – and guess what? No-one else does either – I can only assume that his attitude is related to something else, perhaps Brendan’s decision to give him not a single minute of game time during his tenure as boss. Commons might well believe that was the wrong decision but we won the treble without losing a domestic game, so I am certain as to who’s judgement I hold to be the greater.
Frankly, if Commons continues to write arrant nonsense like this we will have reason to question more than his own judgement. Loyalty, anybody? How about just a little goddamned respect for the club who gave him more than any other he ever played with?
Or is that too much to ask?
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