Before last season started, every single one of us was being told that we were done for, that Van Bronckhorst, having got the Ibrox club to a European final, was just getting started and that we’d soon be overtaken. Some were saying it was the first real challenge Celtic had had since the Ibrox side crawled out of Rangers grave.
Before the start of this season, we were being told that it was The Mooch who was The Real Thing and that his impressive stats would only get better as he put his new players through his paces. Now everyone is telling us what a dud he was and that this had been obvious from the start. Yeah, to Celtic fans. But the media was clueless.
There has not been an Ibrox manager in the last ten years who did not have all this honey poured on him. Keith Jackson was speaking in the papers today like The Man Who Knew Everything; Christ, I remember his pants peeing excitement at Caixinha. It was Jackson who compared him to a Portuguese “James Bond” because he’d been on a jet-ski.
It is embarrassing how they behave at times. It’s even more embarrassing that they pretend not to have behaved that way. Any Scottish hack telling you they knew Caixinha would be a disaster or that Gerrard would be or that Van Bronckhorst would end up the punchline to a million jokes, or that The Mooch would not last a year … liars, liars all of them.
It’s no surprise that they are getting carried away over a home win against Hibs. They beat a better St Mirren team, in Paisley, just a few weeks ago, with the same players and a managerial team which had already flogged its chance of staying in charge. The hysteria surrounding the weekend’s result has been awesome even by their standards.
But the editorials about Clement, bigging him up as though he had already won everything here, is what is truly unreal and delusional. And at the back of it all is something else; the tune is oh-so familiar to those of us with memory spans longer than the last few days.
Because yeah, we’ve heard it all before. Ibrox has done this all before and before and before. They always do this. Their media toadies always do this. A first victory isn’t just a start, it’s the beginning of the end for Celtic and the start of a new era of Ibrox supremacy.
Part of this is a feeling that they are entitled to this. It’s not something that takes development and steady growth and putting down foundations. Christ, that stuff is for mugs. If you are entitled to something then it’ll come to you whether you work for it or not, whether you put in the effort or not, because it is, after all, yours … and the natural order will be restored.
But ask the fans of Manchester United and other clubs who believed that past success entitled them to the same in the future. Languishing in the shadows of their greatest rivals with no end in sight, they might have won trophies since Ferguson left but they’ve never since won the one they believed was theirs as if by divine decree; the Premiership trophy.
Nor have they come close to glory in the Champions League. They are a team living with mediocrity now, a team whose past days might well be behind them. Because that happens to football clubs and only a fool doesn’t know it. It could have been us, but the crucial difference between our club and the one at Ibrox is as that we were a badly run shambles who needed to up our game right across every department. And here’s their biggest issue.
As much as we decry them as a shambles, they are that only because they cannot seem to stop themselves bigging their club up when it isn’t justified. Teams lose games. Only at Ibrox does that turn into an existential crisis, and it’s that because those fans have accepted yet that it might be their rightful position now, that this might be as good as it gets.
Ibrox is running at peak capacity. That’s the thing. It’s not clear how they can improve their financial standing. It’s not clear how they close the gap with Celtic in that regard. They can fund the rebuild of the playing squad – again! – or they can spend the money investing in projects, like stadium expansion, that will actually improve revenues … but they can’t do both, and with every voice raised demanding that they fund the manager we know what they’ll do.
So, they will scrape together the last of the loose change and give him his “transfer kitty.” And it still won’t close to matching where our squad is, and in the end, over the course of a campaign, we will move further clear of them. We’ve seen that before too.
Every one of those previous managers was hailed as genius when he was hired and scorned as a loser as he was heading out of the door. Every win was turned into evidence that this time they’d got it right, no matter how much the hacks had to wriggle like worms on a hook to demonstrate it. He’s getting kudos here because Dessers scored … well excuse me, but I thought that’s what you paid a striker a lot of money to do.
We can stand back and laugh because we can all see where this is going. They can see where it’s going as well, some of them, and yet they are caught up in this swirl of positivity which always hits over there, no matter which eejit they have in the dugout.
Does this guy feel different? Yeah, he might last 18 months instead of just a year but that might not be because he’s a better manager but because they need to at least look as if they are giving him a chance, and it’ll save them at least something on the pay-off.
Who will bet me the Belgium waffle will not see Easter egg time he is like a extra out of the old hammer horrors movies
He and Count Dracula Rae will get on well then…
Horror Club full of Hammer (Horror) throwers !
The reason the media are going for it “big style” is that Celtic cannot stop them winning the League Cup. That obviously means, in their minds, they are a stick-on to win it.
We know how their minds work. “We’ll win the League Cup, stay within touching distance of Celtic in the League until the transfer window …. yada yada yada …. quadruple in the bag”.
Clownshoes the lot of them. Special praise in that department MUST go to Keith Jackson. I’ve seen some fucknuts write for that rag in my time but he takes the biscuit. Arse-candle that he is.
And if he turns out to be even half-decent, he’ll be off at the first opportunity he gets!! It’s not like he’ll have any loyalty to them.
Man United is a great comparison, the entitlement to success is an anchor round every managers neck from the start. Not to mention the attitude of the players who “should” just have to turn up and win automatically.. no matter how good this dude is as a manager he’ll go the same way as the rest, hounded out the door for being simply the second best
They are all sons of Pinocchio
The needle returns to the start of the song and they all sing along like before
Hahaha great comment 🙂
They are clearly utter idiots and they treat The Sevco fans like the utter idiots that they are as well…
But The Sevco fans will still buy them by the barrowload –
Thank Goodness most Celtic fans don’t fund them !
If the terms of his contract are to believed he is due the full length of his contract if he is dismissed or even, wait for it, even if he jumps ship.
All this lauded by our hunarse licking Media as a great deal, showing the Clubs resolve. We all know that after Gio and the Mooch ( sounds like a puppet show or cartoon) they can’t afford to bag him. They will persevere by annually scraping together his fee.
The worry for us is that the dark powers that haunt our game go all in to assist them.They know what’s at stake financially regarding the CL Qualification and Second Place Fc’s immediate fiscal health. The soft Loans have disappeared and no one is ponying up on the never never.
I couldn’t believe some of the decisions given in our favour yesterday. Yeah we were good. Excellent even in parts but our path was smoothed a bit. I thought Hâtâte could have been sent off for an apparent kicking out while he was on the deck after a tackle, but no glossed over.The Kyoto penalty was never a penalty. He instigated the contact but, sacré bleu, Baby Dallas as the VARman on the Sky gave it the nod. Scales rode his luck a few times with his by now uncharacteristic lunges.
It felt surreal at times watching it. Hearts were Shoite and even their heads went down at a few of the decisions.
We may have overcome the initial obstacles in our way with the so called impartial Computer generated first round of fixtures but this season has a long way to go and we will need to be hammering teams 4/4/6 nil to be assured of the points.
The Kyogo one was a penalty. Looks weirdly soft but on 2 angles can clearly see the dumpling clatters his knee into the back of Kyogo’s leg. Then Hatate is fouled anyway.
Agree about Hatate kick out, was madness.
did u not see the way cammy devlin was trying to kick and rile up hatate all day if anybody should’ve been sent off it was him. its the typical hearts way everytime we play them they try to put the boot in but today they couldn’t get anywhere near us apart fae the devlin / hatate battle
We all knew this was comin. Find it incredible as well, how they’re all ecstatic about souness comin back as some sort of ‘advisor’, when just about everythin he touched after ibrox turned tae shit. Wouldnae get too excited.
i thought cammy devlin should’ve been sent off yesterday not hatate he spent the whole game kicking lumps out of him and shoving him and hatate was having none of it. its the usual hearts way
I’m sure monsieur Clement is a capable enough head coach. But frankly anyone short of peak miracle working Jesus is on a hiding to nothing there. Expectations and reality are so far apart that even modest improvements will be seen as failure. To the hoardes only immediate all encompassing and sustained success is acceptable.
Not to forget, this summer they have to play friendlies for nothing to cover court costs and compensation due to Aussie firm who sued when Sevco Fc pulled out of Oz tour.
Can see this getting messy, as they will need monies from ibrox pre season friendlies.