The Celtic Boss Hit Back At Martindale Yesterday In Exactly The Right Manner.

Every time Ange goes in front of the media lately, he’s had to deal with the barbs and disrespect of people not fit to shine his shoes. If Martindale or The Mooch had the managerial career he has had, or the record that the Celtic boss can boast, they might have earned some right to poke him with a stick. As it is, they have earned no such thing.

I’m going to get to The Mooch later on. Ange utterly destroyed him yesterday with yet another sharp dig, which has me convinced now that he’s determined to keep punching this sore until something bursts. The Mooch has brought it on himself.

So, too, has Martindale and it was amazing to hear Ange refer to him in the manner that this blog has several times lately; as nothing but a shameless self-promoter whose every word is calculated to make himself look good. Ange is not daft, he can see a mile away what this joker is up to and every time he comes up against us there’s some variation on the theme.

Ange may coach this stuff in jokes and in a light-hearted fashion but this is a straight talking guy and so you better believe that he means every word he says. He stopped short of saying “I mean him no disrespect”, but that would have been a little obvious and he reserves that withering contempt for The Mooch. But he said something much the same.

When asked about Martindale’s comments about how he has to work on a vastly smaller budget, Ange shot back. “I think he tells us that on a weekly basis, doesn’t he? So there’s no secret there. Which is a nice way of him sort of downplaying their prospects and maybe pumping himself up a little bit and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Nothing wrong with it indeed, just so long as you recognise what it is and don’t buy into Martindale “who me, guv?” act when he pretends not to be doing what we all see him do. I wonder if he was like that in a courtroom as well, playing the innocent, maybe even indulging in a little bit of what Warren Zevon called “poor, poor pitiful me.”

I thought his presser yesterday was an Ange Postecoglou masterpiece.

He slapped down a BBC hack for asking a daft question, he knocked Martindale’s puny softball over the centre field … and then he turned his guns again on the Village Idiot standing in the SPFL managerial square, our friend The Mooch, who was already not having a great day.

I’ll talk about the remarks he directed at Ibrox and elsewhere a little later on.

They are worth exploring in a little more detail.