Jackass Rides Again With Another Woeful Celtic Attack Piece.

Yes folks, it’s that time of the week again; Keith Jackson in full flow, slabbering onto his keyboard and earning the full-scale treatment with the flamethrower. This is typical stuff from him today, full of his usual idiocy and bad writing. I’m not even going to waste time with the preamble, I just want to get right into it so we can get right back out of it again.

So let’s start with the headline.

“Brendan Rodgers demands Celtic are taken seriously but fixing the flakiness is a matter of urgency – Keith Jackson”

Starting as it means to continue, I guess. Brendan Rodgers has made no such demand. He has simply pointed out that the media narrative all season long has been of us as a club in crisis. That’s what he’s said and that is nothing but a stone-cold fact.

“Our man reckons there are still plenty of questions for the champions to answer despite their late, late Lanarkshire show.”

I’m sure that Rodgers and the players are well aware of it. But even if we’d danced to a 6-0 win I’m betting that clowns like this would still have found some nit to pick.

“Amid the late drama and the explosion of unconfined relief at the away end of Fir Park, it was easy to be distracted from the cold, hard truth of the matter.”

We got the win we deserved. If there was relief there was also an acknowledgement that the players were more on it and that we deserved the three points. But I’m sure that Jackson is about to tell us something completely different, because we’re the only team in the country who isn’t allowed to play, or be judged, on what happens over the full 90 minutes.

“Celtic are no longer operating with the conviction of champions and – unless they do something to correct this flakiness as a matter of urgency – no amount of injury time salvage missions will be enough to clamber out of the hole they have been busy digging for themselves this season.”

Actually, you moron, eleven such salvage missions would win us the title. With a game or two to spare. So, please, don’t write such demonstrable nonsense if you want to be taken seriously.

As a matter of fact, what went on in Motherwell – where Celtic came from behind to claim all three points in the dying seconds – was a microcosm of a stuttering and occasionally chaotic campaign. A first half performance which was bordering on woeful from a team which was selected by Brendan Rodgers to mild bewilderment – quickly followed by an all hands on deck recovery job fuelled by a panic induced adrenaline surge.

A bad first half performance turned around in the second half but one or two big, big performances as part of a wider improvement across the whole team. The characterisation of it as “fuelled by a panic induced adrenaline surge”, as well as the word “microcosm” earlier in the paragraph makes me wonder if ChatGPT wrote the bulk of that. Not that it matters, as the point is nonsensical anyway. Rodgers made changes, those changes worked. That’s the “fact” here.

“Yes, of course, when it was over Celtic’s supporters celebrated the moment as if they had witnessed the start of something of huge significance. Whether it was or not remains to be seen. But Rodgers certainly spoke afterwards with a tone of defiance, talking about stories already being written and insisting with his next breath that his side will write one of their own between now and May.”

A tone of defiance? No, the tones of a guy who is pissed right off with talk of a crisis at a club which is only two points behind in the title race with eleven games to go. And you know what? Most Celtic fans were just glad to see some life in this team again, but apparently we’re no more permitted to celebrate a late goal than the team is supposed to score them.

“Not for the first time in recent weeks, this was an attempt by the manager to galvanise the club at a time when everything around Celtic feels bruised and fractured. And the general mood was nearing breaking point at half time when Rodgers felt forced into taking emergency action.”

An Ibrox boss makes half-time changes and he’s a genius. Rodgers does it and it’s “taking emergency action.” If things at Celtic seem “bruised and fractured”, well that’s usually what happens when a club is getting kicked from pillar to post all season long so far.

“By telling Kyogo Furuhashi to stay inside and replacing his out of touch talisman with Adam Idah, Rodgers was taking a monumental throw of the dice. Yes, it may have been a highly calculated gamble but it was a risky business nonetheless. Had it backfired then Rodgers would have found himself coming under furious fire from a support which booed his decision to substitute Tomoki Iwata late in the second half and for no obvious reason.”

First, Kyogo picked up a knock and wasn’t considered fully fit. Rodgers has explained this, but of course I’d hardly expect a sports journalist working at a newspaper which covers this league to know a thing like that, especially when he probably spent most of the night before trying to get over the shock of having to ditch the piece he’d spent much of the game writing. Amazing that Jackson spends so much time on that paragraph without getting the central fact of it right, and secondly speculating on a hypothetical … as if this isn’t exactly what you pay a guy like Rodgers to do.

“Iwata’s inclusion in Celtic’s starting XI – for the first time since December – was the big surprise ahead of kick-off and another indicator that Rodgers is still searching for a way to restore a proper balance to the structure of his team.”

A big surprise to anyone who hadn’t been following the story all week that Iwata was likely to play, one that’s been featured heavily on the Celtic fan sites since he was declared fit for the game … as he was one of the better players in the midfield before he picked up the injury. Again, these are things that one would expect a sportswriter at The Daily Record to know, even a sportswriter as stupid as this guy is. Part of the problem with Celtic this season is that Rodgers has had to chop and change so often with injuries. But to put it in some context, Manneken Piss is the manager in Scotland who has made the most changes to his team this season … and he’s only been here half a season. Is he still searching for his best eleven? Only at Celtic does squad rotation get turned into evidence for the prosecution. Every time we make one change it’s a headline.

“And, despite the angry response to his withdrawal, it may be a while before Iwata is given another chance to stake a claim for more regular game time.”

Wanna bet? Cause if you do, I’ll take your money, you halfwit.

“Rodgers certainly doesn’t have the luxury of being able to carry passengers now that his first season back in Glasgow is reaching the tickly bit. Which is precisely why he had to grab the bull by the horns at half time. Rather than wait for a response from his players, Rodgers had the courage of his own convictions and by throwing Idah into the fray the manager turned this contest on its head. In the nick of time.”

Wait a minute, wasn’t that an unpardonable gamble two seconds ago? And again, this thing about not carrying passengers … he wasn’t allowed to make substitutions either a moment ago. So what in God’s name is the point of this ludicrous piece?

“The Republic of Ireland international scored within the opening five minutes with a spectacular header and he was on hand to expertly apply the finishing touch in the 94th minute after being picked out by Alistair Johnston’s cross. Idah’s physical presence alone seemed to spook a Motherwell defence which had been coping surprisingly comfortably with Kyogo up until the break.”

Little guy carrying a shoulder injury who relies on others to find him space having difficulty against a packed defence, whilst a guy capable of roughing them up got more purchase and did more to justify his inclusion … hmm … revolutionary idea, that. But only if you’ve never watched football before in your life, which, again, allow me for being presumptuous, isn’t something you’d think would apply to someone who is paid to do that and makes his living out of it.

“The on loan striker also gave his team a focal point and a genuine reason to start raining crosses into the opposition’s penalty box which they did until they had successfully turned the game around. All in all then, this managerial intervention was as brave as it was shrewd.”

You know how I’ve said that you can get whiplash reading a Keith Jackson piece? This is a great example of that. We’ve gone from a panicked decision to one that was a radical gamble to one that was both gutsy and brilliant. In the space of a few paragraphs. Is this guy for real?

“But it doesn’t mask the fact that Celtic were staring another disaster in the face at the midway point after the latest in a long line of entirely sub-standard performances. Nor does it put much of a dent in the run of statistics which point to the reason why Celtic find themselves in this position, relegated to second place in the league table and lurching from one point of danger to the next.”

Here we go with the “statistics.” The Record is good at these, from 80 minute league tables to attendance records from Thursday night games where a crisp bag blows across the pitch and lands in the away team goal. Nobody wanted to acknowledge Rodgers’ stats when he was pointing out that in the last ten games (before the weekend) we’d got nine wins and a draw. But by all means, Keith, lets hear the magic numbers which make sense of all this.

“Since Philippe Clement arrived at Ibrox in October, both of these teams have wracked up 19 league games, which equates to half a season’s worth of matches. Of the 57 points which have been available to them over that time, Clement has banked 52 of them while, by comparison, Celtic have gathered just 43.”

What a shame then that you don’t get to stop the league and start it up again when it suits you. There’s a reason why a title is decided over 38 games. A full campaign, not a part of one which supports whatever daft argument you’re trying to make. Dare I point out that three of those points we won was Brendan Rodgers cleaning their clock under this guy?

“Had it not been for Idah’s second half heroics in Lanarkshire then those numbers would have looked even more damning this morning. But Rodgers deserves credit for keeping his team in the fight just when it appeared as if a few of them were considering throwing in the towel.”

And had it not been a late equaliser from Kilmarnock at Celtic Park and a rash of penalty kicks late in games which helped the Ibrox club out of a fair few holes since Manneken Piss took over, there wouldn’t be a title race to talk about … but maybe we should leave hypotheticals out of this?

“(Sevco), on the other hand, smashed five goals past Hearts at Ibrox on Saturday afternoon to cement their place at the top of the table and the emphatic nature of this routing feeds into the narrative that momentum has switched entirely from one side of Glasgow to the other.”

I could just as easily argue that all it proves is that Steven Naismith shouldn’t be allowed in the dugout for these matches and nobody who I talked to had the slightest belief that this one was going to be the exception to that rule. Hearts were an utter embarrassment at the weekend. I have no doubt we’ll face a very different version of them soon.

“That’s one of the reasons why Rodgers was talking in riddles about stories having been written already but, then again, Celtic’s manager may have a happy ending up his sleeve. He is correct in his assessment that a two point lead counts for very little when there are still another 33 to be played for.”

Talking in riddles? Funny that every Celtic fan understood exactly what he was saying. Hell, even Jane Lewis understood it just fine. This whole article is part of that “story” being written. But then the writer of this story is too stupid to get the irony.

“And he has the comfort of knowing that he has already masterminded two derby victories over (Ibrox Club 2) since returning to the city last summer. If he can maintain this winning streak then the table could soon look very different indeed.”

Which is just one of the reasons he’s telling you lot to shut it.

“But that will most probably only happen if Celtic can go on an unblemished run of their own between now and their next visit to Ibrox on April 7. That would involve rattling off successive wins over Dundee, Hearts, St Johnstone and Livingston.”

I’m sure Rodgers is well aware of that. But thanks for the heads up.

“If Celtic are to be taken as seriously as Rodgers demands that they are, then nothing less than full points will do.”

Start with a lie, end with the same lie. And it’s a lie in more ways than one, because even if Celtic do win the next four on the bounce, I know exactly what this clown and the others like him are going to say before that game kicks off: “this is the real challenge for Rodgers and Celtic.” Theirs is the second easiest job in the world. Predicting their next line of attack, well, that’s the easiest.