Inspiration comes in little moments, and when Bayo stuck the ball in the net yesterday I sensed one of those moments, an inspiration that will already be coursing through the press boxes. Before this month ends, they are going to try that karate trick of using an opponent’s strength against him.
Ours is our squad. Watch how they try to spin that into a negative.
Celtic’s team selection yesterday was excellent. If not for Welsh being cup-tied and a few others still out injured there might have been more of our starters sitting in the stands. Contrast that with the side that Sevco played the day before; their first team players were all out there against Hamilton.
Amazingly, it was the home side who played six academy players in that game. Sevco fears every match right now and they cannot call on a deep bench.
Their players will be dropping like flies before long.
Yet I knew the minute Bayo scored that questions would be getting asked in the papers about whether he or Klimala was the third choice striker. John Kennedy has already had to sit in front of the hack pack and say that the Polish front man “needs time to settle.”
The press corps is never going to give him that. We know this because they never do.
Right now, Ryan Christie and Rogic can’t even get into this team.
The decision to play two up front means sacrificing a player somewhere else in the side; this is inevitable. It is a matter of time – and it will certainly be before the end of the month – before some in the press pool are trying to use this as a stick with which to beat us.
It will begin with questioning Lennon’s selections.
It will evolve into a general discussion on our signing policy.
It will explore the “flops” we’ve signed – notice that none of this ever happens at Ibrox, until they are praising the club for paying people off – and before long it will be questioning which players are happy and which aren’t.
You might even get some internet tittle-tattle thrown in for good measure; the media certainly has no objections to doing that when it suits them.
This is a familiar, and much used, stratagem; what’s worse is that a lot of our supporters will go right along with it.
Some are already questioning Klimala and the only reason they’re not making more noise about the “waste of money” is that many of them have written Bayo off already and consider him an even more egregious mistake.
This is just nonsense. I mean who needs the mainstream press stirring the soup when we have folk in our support who will?
Before this season ends, all these guys will get their opportunity.
The better they do the more the media will bang on this drum; “How can Celtic keep all these players happy?” That, too, is a well-worn path and a tactic never used to debate big bloated Ibrox squads. Gerrard has signed more than 20 players; he gets a free ride on this score.
We never do. Not that we care.
What we get instead are trophies and titles and breaking records.
We’ll settle for that, right?
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