Ryan Stevenson, anybody? Remember him?
Yeah, me neither. I had to look him up. Ex-St Johnstone and ex-Hearts. How nice of the media to exhume him from the football graveyard of the West of Scotland League where he is the manager of Glenafton Athletic.
No harm to them, but if their manager has time to talk to the press about stuff that has nothing to do with him then maybe they aren’t giving him enough work to do.
He got in the media by the quickest available route. One of them anyway. The quickest route is to attack Celtic. The second quickest is to attack Celtic fans. I guess his playing history is profile enough for the media to take his comments seriously.
And what are his comments?
That Celtic fans should cease all the conspiracy theorising as to why Hearts never – ever, ever – show up against the Ibrox club. I can tell you right now why; their manager has no interest in taking points from them.
Neilson is a talented guy. He’s got three Scottish Championship titles under him with two different clubs, so I know that guy knows what the Hell he is doing. And it’s because I know that he knows what he’s doing that I can say with total confidence that he has not tried a leg against Ibrox. The player who started his youth career with the first Ibrox operation seems almost determined to embarrass himself every time he comes up against them.
Oh when it comes to Celtic, his team are always – and I mean always – up for it. And they argue after the games about every decision they don’t get and every break of the ball. Neilson wanted an SFA inquiry into a throw in last season against us.
And in midweek his side capitulated – there is no other word for it – against their team, barely showing up at all for a massive game at home. The media drooled over the Ibrox club’s display, portraying it as the best The Mooch has gotten out of them.
Interesting then that they were rank rotten again this afternoon, scraping a single goal home win against Ross County with the aid of a deflected free kick. Amazing coincidence that, isn’t it? That they should have saved their brightest display for going up against a team which inexplicably changed its entire formation and system before the game.
Stevenson says that the same accusation is levelled at Aberdeen against us, that they never try a leg against us and raise their game against the Ibrox club. This is a joke as anyone who has looked at their results against the Ibrox side can easily attest to. They couldn’t even hold onto a goal lead deep in injury time without throwing away the points.
Stevenson clearly fancied his moment in the limelight; he’s got it or so he thinks at the expense of our fans. But if he really wants to have a debate then let’s have one.
He says that there are Celtic fans amongst the Hearts team and he’s right, and he’s right to say that these guys will obviously not lie down … but what happened at Tynecastle in midweek was not unlike what Geoffrey Howe said about Margaret Thatcher all those years ago; on that occasion he used a cricketing metaphor, but I’ve always loved it and he made his point.
“It is rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease only for them to find, the moment the first balls are bowled, that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain.”
Even the most committed player is going to have trouble taking control of a game in which his manager has sabotaged the starting eleven.
If Stevenson wants to have this discussion, then let’s start with this; he can go and track down his pal Neilson and ask him what the Hell that was all about.
Because if the BBC commentary team could spot that those tactics were a loser then why couldn’t the manager of Hearts, with all his talent and all his skill? Celtic fans will be very interested to hear the answer.
Neilson isn’t worth the steam AFF yir pish, regards the previous article ban them from the site, in fact, ban them from everywhere you can so they cannot spread their bile & shite.
Neilsen’s a chanty wrassler of the highest order.
His teams NEVER try against the huns, and he never complains when the sevs pump them as they invariably do. Compare this with his whinging when Celtic pump them, after a match that they play like a cup final. If I were a Hertz fan, God forbid, I would be royally pissed off about this.
Anyway, fuck them. They deserve everything they get. Their arses must be sore with all the rogering.
scottish football and society is a fukn joke…bigoted and corrupt…
just looking ar bbc scotland show….thompson, foster and mccann…2 of the bastards being ebt cheats….
only in dead brilliant wee scotland !!!!
how long more are you people gonna put up with the sectarianism, racism and bigotry ?????
ffs man…..
funny thing is . i just checked a hearts forum and every post to a man is saying pretty much the same thing that the tactics and team selection were set out to lose against them and have been everytime they have played them.
And thats from Hearts fans
Not just us thats paranoid eh
Which manager in Scottish football changes his winning team formation , with playing players out of position ,totally uncomfortable and alien to some of them ,all because of an experiment against the Rangers ? Robbie Neilson the fraud ,that’s who ! It’s like leading the Open championship at St Andrews after 3 rounds playing well,full of confidence ,then take a brainstorm by using other clubs and another caddie ! It just does not make sense whatsoever …You lose and when asked what went wrong ,you say oh ,I was trying an experiment ! What the hell….
The new klub playing out of ibrox are only 1 game away from a SKELPING and not just from our own club.
A middle of the road is going to do them at some point and then that’s when they will fold and Mr Bean will be no more.
Was the Christmas card manager not complaining after that disaster the other night,playing at home and getting scudded by a bunch of OAP’s.
Lawrence Shankland is Lee Griffiths oldest child.
Just watched this game. It was totally embarrassing. Wow, it was like the A&B team playing for the same club and Thompson & co don’t even address Morelos going back down the field to stick it right into the heart’s fans. They deserve all they get.
Ange play oh and Kyogo together today a cricket score certain hail! hail! COYBIG. In Ange we trust.