Celtic’s Critics Are Now Banging The Drum Over Hatate. Give Us Peace For God’s Sake.

How sick and tired are you all of this constant media assault on us over refereeing decisions?

Have you ever seen such pure hysteria in all your time watching the game in Scotland?

It seems that almost from the moment our chairman was accused – and accused is the correct word because it’s a baseless claim – of “putting pressure on officials” at the AGM this has been wall-to-wall, with every decision, big or small, being analysed to death.

Reo Hatate is the latest player under the microscope, with the press going into overdrive with the suggestion that he should have been red-carded against Dundee Utd and now should miss the cup semi-final with the Ibrox club.

That he was absolutely sensational against them at Celtic Park, scoring twice and generally running riot, is just a coincidence of course, and has nothing to do with the clamour.

What do they want out of it? A retrospective disciplinary? It won’t happen, and Celtic would put down the stakes and go to war over it if the governing body even tried. I don’t think they can anyway so it’s a moot point.

The media’s aim seems to be to flip the script here; if we’ve pressured refs into going easy on us they hope to flip them the other way. It’s a good strategy, if you subscribe to the theory that underpins it. But we all know that our club didn’t seriously apply any pressure and that Ibrox gets decisions every week which are completely ignored.

So whatever the press is trying to do, I very much doubt that it is going to succeed.

But they keep on banging the drum, and every Celtic player is now a target.

Yesterday’s attack on Hatate was particularly pathetic, because they tried to get the Dundee Utd manager to condemn him and make demands for restitution.

Whilst he agreed that the player might have been red carded, he also said something the media clearly did not expect, and this makes a farce out of whatever game they are playing.

“I did feel there were some similarities to the Calum Butcher tackle that was retrospectively looked at,” he said. “I’ve taken a look back and I don’t think there was any malice in it.”

Game over. Whatever the game is.

Still, the game continues.

Honest to God, I wish they would give us peace.

This was tiresome a while ago and even the manager is starting to get pissed off with it.