The Record’s Latest Desperate Celtic Headline Is Built On A Fundamental Untruth.

Part of our continuing problem with the Scottish media is its inability to play with a straight bat.

Today, they have an article up whose headline and basic premise are about as fundamentally dishonest as any you’ll ever see. They relate, of course, to the goal we scored in midweek, the one that some of them have been furiously stamping their feet over.

“Jota Celtic winner at Pittodrie won’t decide Rangers title fight as former refs weigh in on Willie Collum call” screams the headline, and it’s a remarkably stupid one as I don’t know a single person who thought that it would, especially with a dozen games left.

The whole article is based on the idea that it’s a shocker of a decision, and they’ve drafted in Steve Conroy, who I talked about earlier in the week and the way he didn’t want to be seen to give us any benefit of the doubt, and Des Roache to say that Jota’s goal shouldn’t have been allowed. Note that there are other former officials who say that it was a correct decision, but their views might have upset the narrative this desperate paper is trying to push.

If I had to pick a favourite line in the article it would be this one;

“Many Rangers fans and pundits reckon Celtic got lucky at Pittodrie on Wednesday night.”

You’ll notice that it feebly attempts to separate the two – Ibrox fans and pundits – as if there were much difference in the eyes of many of us, and when it comes to the author of the piece in question – Lindsay Herron, the author of the semi-fictional “Rangers: The Journey Part One” and who has spent a career covering his favourite club – there is no difference whatsoever.

If you polled the Ibrox supporters – which I assume is who he means – you’d find they believe a lot more than that.

These are the clowns who scare themselves thinking about the omnipotence of the Unseen Fenian Hand and think the government’s Omicron response was designed to help Celtic … so it’s not exactly the proof of a strong argument to base it on their mad fantasies.

All of this is increasingly deranged.

It doesn’t matter how many Kris Boyd’s or Steve Conroy’s they drag out of the woodwork; the game is over; the points are in the bag. I also find the focus on these particular controversies, and not others, to be brazenly dishonest, although I suppose it’s part of the point.

Because, after all, if you are focussed on this then you aren’t looking at the penalty Hibs didn’t get or the goal we should have gotten but which was flagged for offside.

As far as I’m concerned once you accept that the Jota one which would have made it 3-0 should have counted then the whole argument over whether our winner should have becomes a bit of a dead rubber.

Again, though, that would deprive them of their manufactured controversy and all the nonsense that goes with it.

On top of that, I thought there were aspects of the referee’s performance which should have been given more attention than they were, such as his decision to allow the thuggish ex-Ibrox player McCrorie do pretty much as he pleased all night.

But the leniency being shown to players who seem almost morbidly determined to leave the boot in on our stars every chance they get isn’t a new phenomenon; we’ve been seeing it all season long, and it still doesn’t get a fraction of the attention which has been given to a handful of decisions which have gone Celtic’s way over the course of this campaign so far.