Jackass Rides Again! Keith Takes Another Swing At The Celtic Boss, And, As Ever, Trips Over His Own Feet.

Keith Jackson. Writing in the paper today. Forcing himself onto this blog.

Didn’t we go over this yesterday? Or am I so disoriented that I’m getting my days wrong? This is Tuesday, right? So why is this geezer penning another piece with his name slapped all over the headline as if he’s a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and not just a desperate hack?

His piece yesterday avoided the full-scale savaging, mostly because I just couldn’t be bothered with it. He is tiresome at times, is Jackson. It seems pointless to go over some of his pieces, especially the ones where he stumbles into incoherence.

Thankfully, he can always be relied on to hit rock bottom. And today he’s presented us with a piece that is so fundamentally flawed that I cannot but take it apart.

So, let’s get down to our usual business, a day later than usual, granted.

But he so seldom lets us down, he so seldom fails to hit bedrock, time and again Keith Jackson can be relied on to show us what below the barrel really looks like.

Let’s start with the headline; not his own work, but usually pretty reflective of the article we’re about to read, and so it shall be here.

“Brendan Rodgers is sending subtle Celtic signal as (Ibrox) boss Philippe Clement frays around the edges – Keith Jackson”

Subtle signals. Subtle enough that you misunderstood them yesterday, right Keith? Cause yesterday you said his comments were basically Rodgers pandering to a small section of the Celtic support. In truth, when you step back Rodgers is actually being about as subtle as a brick in the face, and I write that as a fellow fool who didn’t even twig that his comments on Saturday were all that controversial at first, and I was in the room when he made them.

“The Belgian boss was less than pleased with the post-match comment from the Parkhead manager.”

Well, as I wrote earlier, the Belgian Waffler, old Manneken Piss, isn’t playing with a full deck of cards, as his bizarre interview from October last year, in which he admitted messing up the lives of his wife and kids fundamentally proves.

I mean, by his own admission, this is the guy who used to send his own children screaming to their bedrooms in tears because he wouldn’t allow them a morale-boosting victory at Snakes & Ladders if he didn’t think they’d “earned it”, although how a “small child” is meant to “earn” the respect of the man who left mummy after she once let him win at Hearts because she was tired and wanted to go to bed early, thus proving her lack of the “winning mentality”, I do not know.

Anyway, here we go down the rabbit hole again, into the alphabet soup of Keith Jackson’s mind … warning; do not operate heavy machinery whilst reading the bits highlighted in bold.

“Let’s be honest, there was an unfortunate touch of the Charlie Nicholas vs Jeff Stelling ‘You should go to Specsavers also’ about it.”

Eah? I am sure a lot of people do know what this bizarre opening refers to, but I personally didn’t, and that’s problematic for a reader. See, your first paragraph is “the hook.” It should also contain enough clarity that your readers can be assured that they’ll understand the rest of the piece.

If they have to go on to Google right away just to get your first attempt at a crap joke, then that’s probably not great.

You also have to bear in mind that you are Keith Jackson. Keith Jackson. Anyone who has to leave your article for even ten seconds will definitely find something else to read that is more worthy of their time, and they won’t be coming back.

For the record, and for those who were as baffled as me, this is a reference to a piece of football arcana that goes back at least ten years. It’s about an exchange Nicholas had with Jeff Sterling on Sky over an offside decision and which led to Nicholas fumbling a comeback which is pretty cringey, and shows every gaping hole in his own limited intellect. It’s tragically bad patter which now that I’ve watched it I wish I could erase it from my brain.

The thing is, I do know what Jackson is getting at now, but that he chose to present his point in such a shambling way, with no context and no explanation, sums up how awful this guy is at the job he gets paid a lot of money to do.

But when Philippe Clement bit down on the bait dangled for him by Brendan Rodgers on Sunday, it provided a fascinating insight into the mindset of the two managers who are about to engage in a winner-takes-all derby double. One of these men will wrap a hand around the Premiership trophy this weekend when (Clement’s team) arrive at Celtic Park for a potential title decider.”

The way Jackson has leaped from his article yesterday, which claimed that Rodgers was trying to win over the Celtic fans to this one where our manager is now “dangling bait” for Clement’s snapping jaws certainly provides a fascinating insight into his mind, I can tell you that.

“Victory for either might not be enough to actually seal the deal but it will guarantee that the momentum is claimed by one of them with only two more rounds of league fixtures remaining. With so much about to go on the line – and a Scottish Cup Final showdown still to come at the end of the month – both men will be feeling the pressure squeezing hard on their shoulders.”

One of those segments of quintessential Keith Jackson prose, the kind that would make a high school English teacher grind his or her teeth in sheer frustration. “The pressure squeezing hard on their shoulder.”

Good grief. Someone get me something by the Ancient Embarrassment to read. He, at least, knows how to craft language properly.

“They’re just adopting different ways of dealing with it. Because, although this absorbing head-to-head has the potential to become very complicated from here on in, the arithmetic behind it remains simple enough to understand. A share of the spoils on Saturday lunchtime would be enough to keep Rodgers in pole position just yards out from the finishing line, three points ahead and five goals better off into the bargain.”

First, let’s be clear on something; there’s really nothing complicated about any of this, it’s all about arithmetic now, and as even Jackson knows this is all very simple. You’ll notice that he talks about the implications of a draw, right? Which is an outcome I’m sure Rodgers isn’t even entertaining. Why not the implications of a Celtic win? Are they too big for him to wrap his brain around? Those implications are fairly significant, that much is also pretty clear.

As to this idea that the managers are “adopting different ways” of dealing with the pressure, that’s not true. Rodgers is dealing with the pressure. The Belgian Waffler very clearly is not. Anyone who can be moved to fury by three little words isn’t coping at all.

“And those numbers will be one reason why the Irishman feels relaxed enough to refer to the final (derby) tussle of what has been, to this point, a tumultuous top flight campaign as a “bit of fun”. Clement came across as being strangely prickly when he made a point of responding to Rodgers’ words without the need for any prompting following his own side’s 4-1 win over Kilmarnock 24 hours later.”

 Idiot. Absolute idiot. Over and over again whilst doing these articles, I find myself actually saying that word out loud as I’m typing. Rodgers did not refer to the game itself as a “bit of fun.” He said we would have a bit of fun.

Those are entirely different things.

He knows exactly how seriously he has to take this. He’s saying that on the day our players will be relaxed and in the right frame of mind and that instead of getting rattled by the occasion they’ll enjoy it. Rodgers is not treating this game like it’s a joke … far, far from it. This is one of the reasons I’m convinced we’ll win, because Rodgers and the team are focussed 100% on the job at hand, not on the soap opera.

As to Clement, if Jackson thinks his reaction was “strangely prickly” he hasn’t been paying attention to anything this guy has been saying for weeks now. Why did Rodgers do it? Why did Rodgers throw that particular phrase out there? Just some random words?

No, he did it because he knew he could get a reaction doing it, he knew that it would piss this guy off. Which means he has been listening to Clement as he’s ranted and raved and shown himself up lately … which is very clearly more than Jackson’s being doing.

“The Belgian went on to insist his counterpart was being purposefully disrespectful and it did all feel a little bit unnecessary and manufactured – bordering on infantile. But the whole curious spat is more than just a storm in a teacup where this age-old rivalry is concerned – it’s also indicative of the way both of these men are about to approach what lies ahead in the coming days and weeks.”

A bit un-necessary and manufactured. Dear oh dear. I have only one thing to say to that; “Welcome to the NFL, rookie.” This is what top class professional sports runs on, psychology, mentality, the ability to get inside the other guy’s head, and this has been true since time immemorial.

David Remnick’s brilliant book on Muhammed Ali, ‘The King Of The World’, contains one of the most insightful things I’ve ever read about the importance psychological warfare plays in sport.

Remnick writes about how Ali, then Cassius Clay, dealt with the stress of fighting the monster who was Sonny Liston.

What few people except those closest to Clay realised, at the time, was that he was pretty scared in the lead-up to that first fight, but instead of letting it eat him up he projected strength and supreme confidence.

At one point, he actually drove to Liston’s house and banged on the horn of the car and demanded to fight him in the street.

By the time they met in the ring, Liston was the one who was un-nerved, because he thought Clay was half mad.

There is nothing un-necessary or infantile about a smart leader taking the pressure off his own team and putting it onto the opposition. It requires a degree of sophistication, in fact. What’s “infantile” is squealing to the media about getting no respect when the guy you’re raging at has already beaten you once and taken a point off you in your own backyard. Didn’t anybody teach this guy that respect is earned?

Hey, he grasps the concept; it’s why his kids ran sobbing to their mummy after every game of Cluedo, before daddy kicked her out the house for continually coming second, of course …

“It must be said, Rodgers himself has been prone to taking the odd nibble throughout a difficult second album as Celtic ’s manager – especially when it seemed that Clement was about to claim the upper hand. That’s when he began blethering about writing stories and then painted a target on his own back with his irritated “good girl” spiel.”

Difficult second album. Let’s deal with that first. That’s usually a reference to the second film, or the second season, or the second novel or, yeah, the second album … in football parlance it’s a reference to “so you did well in your first campaign, can you do it again?”

And the answer was yes, he did it again, winning back-to-back trebles, the first manager in Scottish football history ever to accomplish that feat. So yeah, another piece of clunking prose from the pen of the Master of Disastorous Writing.

With that out of the way, let’s tackle the rest of that train-wreck paragraph.

First, Rodgers wasn’t reacting to one fairly modest comment but finally slapping back against months of negativity surrounding him and surrounding his team. It wasn’t a petulant display, but rather a man finally going on the offensive and refusing to take any more shit.

Rodgers is exactly right to talk about “the narrative” around this season, we’ve all highlighted it, we all know what he’s talking about. Yet even when he did that, look at how he framed it; in the context of how we would “write our own story.”

He was saying “we’ll do the real talking on the park.”

And no, Rodgers most certainly did not paint “a target on his own back” with his off-cuff remark to Jane Lewis. It was the media who painted the target on his back in what was one of the most hysterical responses to an absolutely nothing incident that I’ve witnessed in years doing this job.

You want to talk about “manufactured” and “infantile”? The reaction of some people towards that was both of those things and a lot more besides.

It was a clear-cut attempt at character assassination. An atrocious effort to portray our manager as some kind of neanderthal … a genuine low point for a media which really doesn’t need to find new depths, but somehow plumbed them.

“The faux outraged and grossly overblown reaction to that pitchside interview with the BBC’s Jane Lewis in the immediate aftermath of a dramatic but unconvincing win at Motherwell merely served to heighten his persecution complex. For a while – and maybe even understandably – Rodgers took on the demeanour of a man who suspected everyone might out to unsettle him, not just the new manager on the other side of the city. And it didn’t suit him.”

And here we have the Keith Jackson Whiplash Moment, which as you all know is a trait of his which I’ve mentioned time and time again in his articles; his incredible ability to make one point and then flatly contradict it within a short span of words.

From Rodgers painting the target on his own back to an acknowledgement that the media reaction to that incident was completely manufactured in just one paragraph … that is remarkable, even by Jackson’s standards.

Also, Jackson’s obviously not heard the one about how “you’re not paranoid if they’re really out to get you.”

When he’s admitting that certain people are inventing stuff to attack Rodgers then it’s not a “complex” is it?

And how you go from talking about someone’s “persecution complex” to basically admitting in the same sentence – “and maybe understandably” – that he was right to suspect that “everyone might be out to unsettle him” … it’s just incredible.

I can’t be the only person who sometimes comes away from Jackson’s work feeling dizzy.

“But it was also around that time when Rodgers appeared to pivot. That bin fire of an afternoon at Fir Park came at the end of February. The following weekend, at the start of March, Rodgers reacted badly again following a controversial defeat against Hearts at Tynecastle – a result which also happened to let Clement off the hook.”

First, that “bin fire of an afternoon” was, even at the time, regarded by Celtic fans as the moment this season started to click.

That is the barmiest description I’ve read of that game, that single 90 minutes when you saw the Celtic of old suddenly re-appear and grab this title race by the throat again. The only people who could refer to what happened that day in such disparaging terms are those who’ve spent every minute since denying the reality of it and what every Celtic fan I’ve spoken to felt at that moment; “Hey, we’re going to do this after all.”

And sandwiched in between those two games he’s talking about was a 7-1 annihilation of Dundee at Celtic Park which further strengthened that conviction.

Rodgers most certainly did not “react badly” to that afternoon at Tynecastle.

When you’re watching either blatant incompetence or blatant cheating going on in front of you the mug is the guy who stays quiet, not the guy who speaks out and defends himself and his team.

“Just 24 hours earlier, Motherwell made the trip to Ibrox and came away with the shock 2-1 win which, in retrospect, did so much to rip the rug out from under (their) feet. Suddenly, the messaging coming out from Lennoxtown began to sound very different.”

The only people who were shocked that afternoon were those who had drunk copious amounts of the Clement Kool Aid; those who watched their team, dispassionately and calmly, knew that they had a glass jaw that was just waiting to be shattered … and I am talking here about a lot of their own supporters.

As to the “messaging coming out from Lennoxtown” what messaging was that?

Celtic uttered not one word to suggest arrogance or over-confience or anything like it.

Is he hearing voices again, do you think?

He really ought to stop drinking turpentine when there’s no more beer left in the fridge.

“If anything, Rodgers almost returned to a zen-like state of mind as he headed towards another derby day of monumental importance on April 7. It was during those weeks that he began to talk repeatedly about the importance of remaining calm and staying focussed entirely on the stuff that matters.”

What in God’s name is this clown talking about here?

If Rodgers appeared happier with the team it’s because the team had started to click, it had damn all to do with anything happening at Ibrox.

As to Rodgers suddenly starting to talk about the “importance of remaining calm and staying focussed”, that is just Keith Jackson Own Brand Absolute Bullshit. Rodgers was talking about that stuff from Day One back in the job. It’s part of his managerial DNA.

“Three wins on the bounce steadied the ship before Rodgers came within seconds of managing another (derby) victory at Ibrox. Even though (the home team) celebrated Rabbi Matondo’s injury-time equaliser as if the league itself had been secured, Rodgers made his way back across the Clyde with a renewed spring in his step.”

No moral victory though, eah? He must be so gutted.

“By avoiding defeat on enemy soil, Celtic kept their noses in front at the top of the table and ensured that any subsequent gap (their rivals) might open up with a game still in hand would remain controllable. Which is precisely the way Rodgers likes it.”

We didn’t “avoid defeat” that day. The home team narrowly snatched a draw. Get it right.

“That (the Ibrox club) then stumbled all the way from Dingwall to Dens Park will have helped to further lower the stress levels of a manager who has the benefit of having gone over this course and distance before. As a consequence, it has been Clement who has started to become a little spiky and frayed around the edges in recent weeks. His “we will have fun also” remark on Sunday smacked of a man spoiling for a fight.”

It smacked of a man needing a lie down and a bottle of Valium. As I said after reading McGowan’s mad piece about a “war of words”, Clement can fight the guy in the mirror, and see if he’s got that “winning mentality.” We’re too busy preparing for a game.

“Rodgers, on the other hand, is very deliberately giving off the vibe of someone who feels in such complete control of his own destiny that he can sit back and enjoy watching it all come together. By very consciously uncoupling himself from the stresses and the strains around this pressure-cooker race to the finishing line – or at least by appearing to do so – Celtic’s manager is sending out a subtle signal that he’s got this campaign exactly where he wants it.”

Yeah, and I’m just wondering when Jackson realised that.

Before, or after, that idiotic piece that went up yesterday in which he accused him of a desperate act of pandering to our supporters?

How many people in his own newsroom were openly laughing as they read that piece, and wondering how a professional sports writer can have so monumentally missed the point?

“Of course, he could become rattled by Clement all over again if (the Ibrox side) do dig out the result they require on Saturday at his expense. But, for the time being at least, Rodgers seems determined to relish being the man in charge.”

Excuse me for asking an obvious question; but when the Hell was Rodgers ever “rattled by Clement” in the first place?

Yeah, Jackson really does have to stop drinking whatever’s under the kitchen sink when it’s too late to nip out to the off-license.