Yesterday’s results have done something that was entirely predictable; they have put The Mooch under the most intense pressure.
It amuses me it does not require a pro-Celtic media – which in this country does not exist – to do this, but the panicked anger of a pro-Ibrox one that cannot understand how yesterday could possibly have happened.
The article which sums it up is from Gary Keown, who opens with the preposterous suggestion that Beale did not have to win this season’s title; he only needed to put Brendan Rodgers under real pressure. But if Celtic were champions, if our club was on top, if we secured our third title in a row, then where was the pressure coming from?
He thinks that in the event of putting us in that position – winners, but still with the manager facing the sack; put that aside for the moment – that fan anger at what Brendan did four years ago would bubble over in a support which he doesn’t believe really supports the decision to hire him, and which is hypocritical for … err … supporting the decision to hire him.
Confused? Yeah, me too. But only that someone paid this joker to put an article this bad together. And friends, that only covers the first paragraph.
At one point he talks about how yesterday’s Celtic Park game “passed without incident” as though he were expecting some balaclava wearing nutter to charge onto the pitch and make a bee-line for the technical area.
He lives in a very dark fantasy world if this is the view he holds of our supporters; I suggest he look closer to home for the actual loonies.
Fortunately, the piece isn’t about us. It’s about Beale, and whilst there are some irrational and idiotic claims about Celtic in there, Keown has not written the thing with us in mind. He’s targeting, instead, the club that he loves, and The Mooch himself.
His general prediction, that if we win at Ibrox and thus go six clear that the Ibrox boss will be facing the sack, is not all that crazy. I’ve already written something similar. He’ll certainly be under more scrutiny than he has been thus far here, and if he’s also already gone out of the Champions League it is not hard to see their board getting shot of him.
Keown brings up an interesting point, one which no-one else in the media has raised so far.
The Mooch was not the choice of the current Ibrox chairman, and perhaps not the CEO either, and although Bisgrove’s previous role was in the commercial side of the business he was on the board, he’d have had a vote and I wonder if The Mooch presented him with enough sexy commercial upside.
Let’s face it, he has a face for radio and comes nowhere near offering the sort of cachet that a club icon or former football superstar could provide.
So it’s far from impossible that the Ibrox board might not have much patience with the guy they’ve just entrusted to spend everything that was in the bank account, and I can easily believe that if it gets to the point where they are just not seeing it that they’ll decide that they have no alternative but to see The Mooch off. I actually think it’s the inevitable ending, and have since the very first minute that they appointed him boss.
But it will move a lot more quickly with the pro-Ibrox media, desperate for success like the rest of that rabid fan-base, demanding action.
They really do believe they now have a team to challenge Celtic, and if that challenge doesn’t materialise they will not question their own penchant for believing what they want to and over-hyping every signing over there or consider that they might be part of the problem … Hell no, they will blame The Mooch himself and they will claim that someone with the resources he has should be beating the other teams in this league with ease.
It’s the same arrogance that’s got them in this bother, and they haven’t recognised that yet and they won’t recognise it now. I’ve said before, but it bears repeating, that for all the stick we give the media no club in the country is as poorly served by them as the one at Ibrox is, and that’s because too many of our hacks are cheerleaders instead of objective reporters, and so problems over there tend to be ignored until it’s too late.
Some of the biggest Ibrox die-hards work in our press rooms, and they feel the same way that the rest of the fan-base does watching games like yesterday; a profound sense of dread, and an acute sense of déjà vu. Eventually, they snap just like everyone else … except they’ll snap a lot sooner, in part because they’ve spent the last few months getting so carried away.
I will be interested to read Jackson tomorrow, and it will be equally interesting to see what Chris Jack produces next. Of course, the phone-lines will be red hot as their fans go completely off their nuts. Especially if Wednesday is another disaster.
Don’t underestimate the important role the media has played in destabilising the very club that so many of them think they are going to bat for. They are their own worst enemies, and if anyone is going to get The Mooch sacked early it will be them.