Soccer Football - Scottish League Cup - Final - Rangers v Celtic - Hampden Park, Glasgow, Scotland, Britain - February 26, 2023 Rangers manager Michael Beale speaks to his players after the match Action Images via Reuters/Lee Smith
The Ibrox fans … you have to take your hat off to them at times.
No other supporters in this country are as capable of embracing delusional thinking and flipping through various emotional states. For many of them, the “news” that The Mooch had made some changes to his social media platforms over the course of last week was treated as gospel that he was done, that he was gone, that he had been relieved of his duties.
Of course, nothing of the sort had happened, and the sense of expectancy was wholly unwarranted. The Mooch remains in his job this evening, and there is no sign whatsoever that anything is imminent which will change that.
They were furious about that this morning, and contemptuous of their club.
How are they feeling tonight?
They are in a much better frame of mind, and for the daftest reason imaginable.
We all know how this ends of course, because as Celtic fans we’ve been there.
But so have they and they should have realised that it’s going to take a lot more pain before the board finally pulls the plug. Maybe not as much pain as we went through when it was Lennon, but then he had immense goodwill inside the boardroom and a haul of trophies to fall back on … The Mooch has neither of those things, and so it will go much, much faster.
But not this fast. It was never going to go this fast.
Today the media has pictures of the players walking around the club museum. Apparently, The Mooch thinks the key to this is to give them a history lesson. No wonder he got the gig there.
People forget the enthusiasm that greeted this appointment; he was “one of their own.” No doubt about that. Thick as mince and convinced that symbolism trumps all else.
What is the purpose of the history lesson? For openers, most of it is another club’s history. The history of the NewCo is of ignominy and failure, although I have no doubt he was at great pains to point out to the new guys that their one title “success” – in those most exceptional of circumstances – has his name on it, in some respects anyway.
But a player who needed that extra jolt of motivation wouldn’t be near Celtic Park. These Peepul really don’t understand how ridiculous they look to the rest of the world; if they are such a massive club, would the history lesson be necessary?
Yet their gullible fans – who got up this morning wanting the manager sacked – are lapping this up and think that it’s a positive.
Their players “need to know” what the expectations are, apparently, as if they came to the club and didn’t have that immediately spelled out to them. If I were a typical mercenary footballer I might find the idea of a tour around the museum, months after I’d signed, to be mildly amusing, if not a waste of everyone’s time.
Do they think that guys like Danilo or Lammers or Dessers care?
Every club has history and most of them probably find the Survival Lie to be a bizarre retreat from fact and truth in the same way most of us do. So, a trip to the museum is the last thing they needed.
I know this; not one of them became a better footballer as a result of this, but then it beats training on the pitch in an empty stadium because you’ve given away your training ground to your own country’s bitterest rivals. Their behaviour would be incomprehensible to the real neutral; they are obsessed with small matters and ancient grievances.
None of these things makes a single one of them a more capable player, but that’s of little consequence at a club which values the symbolic over that which you can hold in your hands.
That their fans are willing to accept so little is telling about the devastation we’ve wrought on them. If they think this is the answer to their problems they have bigger problems than just the state of the team they follow.
Because this is pathetic.
I think it’s great that Mickey Mouth is steeping them in lessons of staunchness.
Almost on a par with one fan’s plea back in the King days when they realised they were skint who suggested ‘a day for the supporters wives’ at Ibrox where they ‘could get their hair and nails done’ and, no lie, ‘Lorenzo Amoruso could come in as a surprise’ and go round the women, seemingly get their undies in a quiver.
How this would contribute to raising funds for a football team to buy players who knows but it shows the level of their intelligence.
This wasn’t that guy dingwalls idea was it?lolol
The huns have a museum? What’s in it? Not trophies that’s for sure.
Correct me if I’m wrong: Beale said in an interview prior to the PSV away leg,that players who weren’t up to standing up to challenges of that game,and the following weekend game against Celtic,didn’t deserve to be at the club?
I seem to remember thinking “does that apply to you too Mickey?”
My immediate interpretation of that was “don’t blame me WHEN this goes tits up”.
He’s probably a genuinely decent ordinary guy in his private life,but in his professional life he’s a PR disaster and definitely not management material, by a long way.
If he hadn’t been so disrespectful to us (trying to
gain favour with the mob over there) i might have almost felt sorry for him.
Ah now James, the international break can be bit of a drag, especially this early into a season.
But fair play to the scum for the amount of comedy gold they have managed to keep giving.
2 trophy’s in 11 years of existence must really have been such an impressive tour, and sure the scum players were so impressed with the lie.
A scum club that never fails to deliver with such shite, to pamper the zombie bear
Oh he banter years ,the gift that just keeps giving
No training today lads, England paying us to use our training ground.
Since I’ve showed the new guys round the retro strips storeroom..today I thought we could go see the museum, keep youse out the rain..tomorrow Todds going to show you how to do a few steps for tic toc until this mob leaves on Tuesday night.
Ah BARBIE CUNTWELL whatever happened to him? A SPONSORED SILENCE maybe.
They as a club and fanbase are not right in the head,absolute zoomers the lot of them
I’m musing about this museum trip – in scorn, pity, bemusement…
Jeez Oh, what smiles they give to their opposition fans so they do –
I wonder if they have taken the entry fee off the players wages !
Listened to sevco radio there from 2days ago. They want the 12 team league scrapped, as playing each other 4 times a season is boring. The only reason the old 18 team first division was jettisoned in 1975, was because Celtic had just won 9 in a row. They couldn’t take it then. They can’t take it now. HH
Lol a day out at the museum and a nightmare on the park.
As the article has said they ain’t anywhere near their training complex today because they have prostituted that dump out to a country they ripped off for tax.
The messiah! Until they realise its brian and the press has to anoint another ?
Correct James. Rangers FC have no case and NO INTENTION to sack MB. It would be untenable to the Club and shareholders.
MB had his dream job with QPR and doing quite well. Rangers approached Michael B.
The question is “Did they seduce him to be disloyal to QPR with false promises”?
If true his compensation for Breach of Contract, could be massive in a Court,
By-pass the Football Tribunal (Unfair Dismissal).
If MB left the Club by mutual consent, a top Lawyer would get him an enormous compensation settlement, because of the alternative. In a Court, it could be the greatest payout for a Scottish Football Manager. Rangers fans overall, do not want Michael B
dismissed. However, many are hard to please. This season has just started. When Jack Ross was dismissed, after not many games, Ange expressed sympathy without saying his name. I liked that.
Never mind paying for “restricted view” season tickets
Only seen league trophy once in 12 years?
James its not right to mock the afflicted lol!
A
Bit like bullseye this is what you could have won
Of course he can bridge the gap, none of us will be around to witness it.
In fact neither will Beale.
Heaven & Hell was made for Celtic & Rangers.
Celtic go to Heaven.
Well Rangers are already in Hell.
??