Two Pathetic Anti-Celtic Stories Which Sum Up The Dire State Of Our Media.

Yesterday saw the publication of two separate stories which reveal our media in all its shame. One appeared across the media where many of the outlets spun it to be anti-Celtic. The other appeared in a single outlet, which should tell you how abysmal it was that none of the others ran with any version of it.

That’s rare. That fate is reserved for the very worst, for the stories that plumb new depths. The Scottish Sun should get a medal for it.

The first story, of course, was a pathetic attempt to spin Cameron Carter Vickers’ comments into an “admission” that he wants to return to England.

In fact, he expressed his complete lack of concern about whether he does or not. So far from craving it, he is actually pretty relaxed about it. It might happen one day. It might not happen one day.

The more important statement is that he’s happy at Celtic and not even thinking about going elsewhere. Of course, that’s not the part some of the press focussed on. Several headlines accused him of “refusing” to rule out at a transfer home.

Which no player in his right mind, anywhere, would ever have done. That could happen because Celtic decide to move him on for God’s sake, and so the writing of a headline like that is done out of pure spite.

Cameron Carter Vickers is just back from injury. That’s the only reason that stories like this didn’t stalk us all the way through the summer. The press is very obviously gearing up for an entire January of it.

Have you ever known a media to ask so many players if they are thinking about moving? Show me another club, anywhere, which has to tolerate this stuff?

The second story which infuriated me was on Kyogo.

It’s the one that appeared in The Sun. This was the astonishing blurb on their Twitter post read; “His goal made them smile but his antics at full time did not.” The actual headline of the article was worse; “Kyogo’s post match gesture after Japan goal leaves Celtic fans unhappy.” I saw that and knew it would be bad.

And it was worse, by far, than I imagined. The “writer” – I hesitate to use the term – of this atrocious piece actually based that headline on a couple of Twitter posts that complained about Kyogo throwing the ball to the Japan fans in case he put his shoulder out doing it.

That’s the story. That’s the entirety of it.

That’s what they got their clickbait from.

Of course, none of the other sites even touched that desperate effort. It’s too awful even for their rivals. There was a time, of course, when they would have openly mocked a story that bad, but those days are sadly gone.

Sadly, because they drove standards up.

I know it’s international fortnight, and I know these sites are desperate for stuff to write, but trawling the internet for unhappy Celtic fans and then turning that into a full story … that’s abysmal even for our hacks.

The Carter Vickers spin stories are just as bad.

This is what we put up with.

All day. Every day. Nonsense piled on nonsense. But it’s worse when there’s no club football on. Thank God we’re back to it this weekend.