Kevin Thomson’s Advice To The Mooch Sums Up The Gap Between Celtic And Ibrox.

Kevin Thomson offered some advice to The Mooch today in how to deal with Celtic at Hampden tomorrow. Was it about tactics or strategy or the playing of brilliant football? No, he recommended that they try to “rough us up.”

Which shows you what faith these guys put in their ability to simply play better football. He wants to decide the game as if it was Rollerball, and he isn’t the only person to propose that Ibrox adopts a strategy along these particular gruesome lines.

Between this and goons like McLeish telling them that they only have to believe that they can win to do so, there’s a distinct lack of genuine confidence in their side showing up.

Which kind of makes a mockery of all those news reports we’ve had to read this season about how we will eventually see the” real” Ibrox club emerge as if from the shadows.

It seems that not even their own media cheerleaders believe in that shaky narrative. They recognise it for the nonsense that it is. It’s a tacit recognition that the gap is bigger than they want to give us credit for. It’s as close to them telling the truth as we might get, short of an annihilating win tomorrow which strips away any further need for debate.

What comes across most here, of course, is the old school thinking that swirls around their club, and in all these people offering them “advice.” That almost certainly has to be reflected inside the walls too. Their club is a mess; no matter what spin is put on it.

It is easy to say that their club cannot be held responsible for the people who flutter around it talking this kind of crap. But you know what? That’s a cop-out as well because they could, very easily, if they had a shred of sense.

Celtic has already spoken up against people who claim to speak on the club’s behalf or who offer “advice” like this. Their club could tell these people to keep it shut and stop piling pressure on them or suggesting that this sort of help is needed.

The Mooch, if he was smart, would tell these people that they are blocking out all the white noise, that they aren’t paying a blind bit of notice to it and that they are following more effective strategies than crossing their fingers and hoping, or kicking Celtic off the park.

You know why he won’t do that? Because he doesn’t have better strategies.

Denying our superiority in the last couple of fixtures is just another way of crossing your fingers and trusting to hope.

And rough-housing Celtic?

That’s a strategy at Ibrox which is as old as the building.

They will certainly try some variation of it.

The thing is, we’re no longer as easy to bully as we once were.

There are warriors in this team who will give as good as they get.