Opinions. Everybody has one, including the stupidest person in the village where all the Village Idiots go when they retire.
Schoolchildren have opinions. There is a radio show based out of this city where “it’s all about opinions” is the catchphrase. And nearly every one of those opinions – including those by the anchors – is pig ignorant nonsense of the worst sort.
No laypersons “opinion” ever made a problem any better.
When politicians have tried to tap public opinion the results have been disastrous. Those who are the most effective at the business do not play on people’s basic intelligence but the colossal amount of stuff they don’t know.
They invent manifestly dishonest slogans – “taking back control” – in the plain knowledge that most people will not see through the layer of bull.
I have heard a lot of daft “opinions” on Sevco and how ready they are to try to take our title. So many people think they are good enough to challenge us; it’s all “based on opinions” and they seem to be taken seriously no matter how weak they are. Today the media is delirious because Jurgen Klopp is the latest to weigh in on the gap between us and Sevco, and he reckons that it has closed and that Gerrard will be a good manager.
When he talks football, Jurgen Klopp is one of the people we should not readily dismiss but when he talks Scottish football what exactly are his qualifications for doing so?
Does he spend a lot of time up here watching games?
No, because this weekend was his first time at Celtic Park.
Has he watched any of the games this season or last, which would be the basis on which such a comparison would be made?
No, because he had his own team to worry about.
Klopp doesn’t have a clue how good or bad this Sevco team is compared to the last one, or how good and bad we are compared to this time last season. He is talking up Gerrard because it’s expected of him, and the player was a legend at Anfield. The manager of Liverpool is not likely to hammer one of the club’s favourite sons.
But more than that, opinions are not facts. People can say whatever they want, but it does not change objective reality, and the gap is reflected in so many ways; financial, structural, in the playing squad and in the league race.
The media can drag as many people out of the woodwork to spout this nonsense as they can find. There will be no shortage of them here in Scotland. Klopp is getting a lot of ink because he has weight, but his opinion is not based on supporting evidence – which it isn’t – the reality would not be altered one iota.
The gap is real.
It is based on fact, not opinion. All the talk in the world will not help to close it.
All this is just whistling in the wind.
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