Ex-Celt Turns His Inky Guns On The Former Ibrox Boss And Settles That Debt Once And For All.

“Never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel.”

It’s one of the most famous of all aphorisms about picking the media. That’s why certain columnists in politics, sport and entertainment are so respect and even feared.

These folks are taking shots at people and their performances for a living, so if you’re going to get into an argument with them, you better be prepared for the long haul and for it get very bloody and go on to the point of exhaustion.

I was flabbergasted towards the end of last season when The Mooch decided to run his mouth off about Chris Sutton after something the big man said had gotten him upset. It’s bad enough that the ex-Ibrox boss thought he should be immune to criticism, but to then fire back in a highly personal fashion … I thought that took stupidity to a whole new level.

Because Sutton is a regular on TV and on the radio, and he writes a national newspaper column. Not only does he most definitely buy ink by the barrel but he was blessed with multiple means of delivering it on target, and I knew that if he devoted himself to undermining The Mooch and ridiculing his performance every chance he got that it would cause him real problems.

It was utter lunacy to take Sutton on. He thrives on controversy, although he is much smarter than the likes of Keevins and Boyd and the others who don’t know how to do anything else and use it as a substitute for actual insight or talent.

Anybody can sit down and pen a stream of invective, that doesn’t require any skill at all. Sutton knows his stuff, that’s the difference, and when he takes a shot he can aim for, and usually hit, the bullseye.

From that moment on, he had The Mooch squarely in the gunsights.

Now, in the aftermath of the sacking, he is pouring fire down on him like one of those German’s who commanded the machine gun nests at Normandy. And The Mooch has no platform from which to respond now, he’s just got to take it as his character is trashed, as his credentials are shredded, as his reputation is torched. Few people in recent memory in the game here deserve it more.

The Mooch was great at trash-talking and building up his own legend.

The trouble is, when you do that you need to be able to deliver.

I wrote the other day about Muhammed Ali, and how he psyched out Liston and then later on Foreman.

I recall that Foreman was amazed at Ali’s ability to handle him, and he said years later that, “I thought Ali was just one more knockout victim until, about the seventh round, I hit him hard to the jaw and he held me and whispered in my ear: ‘That all you got, George?’ I realized that this ain’t what I thought it was.”

Because Ali could deliver.

He famously said, “It’s not bragging if you can back it up.”

The Mooch never backed it up. It’s why I call him that, and did right from the start.

Because this guy was all talk, that’s his big thing. He would go in front of the media and he would let loose a string of nonsense, much of it contemptuous of his opponents and rivals and the rest of it self-aggrandising.

None of it was backed up with deeds when it mattered.

He voluntarily walked into the minefield, and can’t complain now that things are exploding all around him, with Sutton, in particular clearly taking enormous satisfaction from it.

That was always going to happen the minute this guy fell on his face.

Some hacks have gone out of their way to talk about what a nice guy he was; nonsense, and they know it’s nonsense and I don’t know who they are trying to convince.

He never came across like that at all. He stole the credit from the manager he worked under. He undermined the guy who was in the job before him. He pledged loyalty to QPR and was off like a shot the minute he got the offer he wanted.

He refused to give credit for anything Ange had managed to do and only stopped with the digs at his record when Ange won all their important encounters.

He blamed his players for his failures. He undermined the board of directors. He pushed them to spend ever more money that they didn’t have in support of his alleged vision, which turned out to be public park, kick and rush football … and the media, who are meant to know their stuff, were literally the last people in Scotland to suss that out.

Not Sutton though, and Sutton will not let either The Mooch forget it nor some of the people who were bigging this guy up and who are now using their flamethrowers.

Big Sutton had his ready and fully fuelled, and unlike the others he’s entitled to use it. Because The Mooch poked him with a stick in one of the daftest outbursts of a surreal year in that job.

Of all his actions, that might well have been the stupidest by far.