Who Cares What Alex McLeish Thinks Celtic Should Do About Jota?

Today, just what the doctor ordered for every Celtic fan; former Scotland manager, EBT recipient and now professional rent-a-quote Alex McLeish is bumping his gums on what our club’s needs are. I really do wish these people would stop headline chasing by telling us what it is that we should be doing. They have nothing to say that we want to hear.

McLeish is a particularly bad example of this, because he does it from the perspective of a bona fide enemy of our club and, I would go so far as to even say, the game itself. I cannot stand the guy and think his elevation back to the job he once walked out on without a backwards glance sums up every single thinks that stinks about Scottish football.

That is a view not in the least improved by knowing that it was either him or Walter Smith, of course, who also walked out of the job once … but of course, the media forgave him for that because of where he went and so lost any right they had to demand loyalty from McLeish or anyone else. It’s a superb example of how this game bent to Ibrox, setting a horrible precedent, which we subsequently came to regret.

McLeish is talking about Jota, of course, and if he had expressed an original thought I might not be so pissed off by it, but all he’s parroted is that Celtic should sign him as he’s worth the money. D’uh. For many of you was that a breakthrough thought? It’s certainly not something that has suddenly, and sharply, focussed minds inside Celtic where they’ve been working on the deal for weeks because – guess what? – they think he’s worth it.

Part of this isn’t about McLeish of course, but just the media’s general belief that any opinion that comes from these alleged “elder statesmen” of the game is somehow worth publishing even when it doesn’t even meet the acceptable standard needed to start a debate in a pub beer garden. This is one of these occasions, the expression of an idea so vacuous and without merit that it might as well have been produced by one of those AI writing systems which apparently threaten the fabric of journalism itself. I feel oddly secure in spite of them.

But what burns of course is that someone who has no love for our club whatsoever is giving a Mount Olympus lecture to the manager who just won a double. Even if he had something to say, instead of blowing empty air, who genuinely gives a toss about anything coming out of the mouth of this tax swindler who knew rules were being broken at his club and somehow still landed a gig with the agency which was supposed to be monitoring and policing that?

Scottish football stinks to high heaven at times.