How fortune for Jim Goodwin that he had Ange Postecoglou’s comments from the other day to use in his deflection tactic when he went in front of the media yesterday.
He knew that his riposte to that, however removed from what Ange actually said, would make the headlines. That way, the focus would not be on his lack of answers as to what happened on Tuesday night.
Ask Goodwin about the disaster of those two minutes in which his team didn’t just lose the lead the other night but lost the game, and he professes his astonishment and still can’t quite comprehend it.
How about this for an explanation?
Stewart was having a nightmare at central defence the whole game and the manager left him on the park.
Or how about leaving at least a couple of substitutions until the closing moments so that he could waste some time?
Or maybe giving his players simple instructions about running up the pitch whenever they had the ball, instead of kicking it right back to the Ibrox players?
There were things that might have worked better than closing his eyes and saying a prayer.
His comments on Ange were nonsensical and a blatant misrepresentation of what our manager was saying, and Goodwin knows that full well.
“I am not sure why anyone would take offence to a remark like that but I think I just made the point that Celtic and (Ibrox) have dominated the Premier League table for years,” he said. But did he? And was that the point Ange was addressing?
That’s completely irrelevant to what Ange was talking about.
“Maybe you can explain that to Ange and tell him that is what I meant … I know he is only here a short time so maybe he just needs to look back and see what history tells him.”
Ange has no need to “look back at history.” It’s a shocking statement to make, ignorant, arrogant and insular. That’s an old school Scottish football philosophy to match his outdated style of football. It’s something a lot of us – myself included – were perhaps guilty of; this idea that Ange might not understand the cut and thrust of the game here.
He has long since dispelled that ridiculous notion, and Goodwin, if he’s man at all, will be pretty ashamed of himself when he looks back on that statement.
“In terms of comparing Celtic and (them), they have two different styles of play, two different managers but they are both very good teams.”
Which was Ange’s point.
It was Goodwin himself who actually made the opposite argument with his preposterous claim that he set the team up against us because of what had happened to them at Ibrox earlier in the campaign. He said those words, they were the words that astonishing our manager, and he hasn’t even attempted to defend them.
Instead he’s chosen to ignore them and made up absolute garbage.
But hey, he survived another press conference when hard questions should have been put to him.
Whether he survives the season is another matter entirely.
To be honest most managers outside the big two clubs have my sympathy as they are constantly operating with their jaikets on a shoogly nail. They must be very guarded in what that say as they are always under scrutiny from an over critical media and their own boardroom who might at any time give them that dreaded vote of confidence. It takes an extra special character to be successful working within a tight budget and their career path does not usually last all that long. So, slopey shouldered excuses on occasion have to be par for the course.
I don’t know what your constant beef with Jim Goodwin is but a nicer guy and good Tim you could never meet, an absolute gentleman.
The media already has the knives out for him, not for his team going from a winning position to a losing one in the last 90 seconds. That made them happy, the knives are out for not having a go at Celtic because their team needs favours.
If Celtic are brilliant on Wednesday then Lee Johnston is next, see the pattern?
Give it a rest James. They want to remove the Aberdeen manager with a bluenose and you are putting the boot in whilst he’s down.