Jackson and his paper find new depths in their quest for Ibrox feel-good.

Last night, the Daily Record outdid itself with one of the most absurd pieces of pro-Ibrox sycophancy we’ve seen in a while. This is a newspaper that specialises in pro-Ibrox bias, so when they hit a new low, you know it’s dire. And this was dire.

Celtic just posted its annual accounts, revealing a £17 million profit for last season—another eight-figure profit. It’s incredible that a club can consistently win trophies while living within its means. The financial gulf between Celtic and their rivals is extraordinary.

One of the key aspects of our success is the strength of the playing squad and our ability to find and develop talent. Some credit this to the board, but I say it’s largely down to having elite-level coaches who know how to improve players. Of course, the scouting team plays a crucial role too, because even the best coaches need raw talent to work with.

Recent transfer business, especially from Ange Postecoglou’s first two windows, has kept us ahead of our rivals. We’re currently five points clear of them in the league, and every neutral journalist admits we’ll be too strong for them over the course of this campaign.

Nobody expects them to be champions. They’re a club in disarray—no chairman, no CEO, no academy head. They’re a shambles. So naturally, their friends in the press have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for positives. And boy, did they find one.

They’ve latched onto the Moroccan striker Hamza Igmane, with their pet hack Keith Jackson more than willing to play his traditional role as Useful Idiot. His article last night took sycophancy to a whole new level, even by his pitiful standards.

Let me paint the scene for you.

At the Daily Record editorial meeting, they’re sitting around with their coffee and biscuits, deeply depressed about the state of their club. Despairing over Celtic’s strength under Brendan Rodgers and our savvy transfer strategy, they brainstorm ways to paint a rosy picture for Ibrox.

By this point, they must know that King isn’t riding to the rescue, and any outside investment is a fantasy. Maybe they even skimmed through our blog, borrowing liberally from our analysis. (Let’s face it; some of them have history there.)

It’s dawning on them that no white knight is coming, and even if someone did, it wouldn’t make much difference unless there’s significant spending. But that’s not going to happen because UEFA won’t allow it to. There isn’t any reason for optimism.

Their only real option is to sign, develop, and sell players at a profit—exactly like Celtic. They’ve convinced themselves that this is the only reason we have a financial advantage, that it’s purely down to player sales. A quick glance at our accounts debunks this, but they’re skilled at ignoring facts that don’t fit their narrative.

The problem they face is that their squad has no real value.

We’ve seen enough of their players to know there’s little resale potential. Take their midfield as an example. Diomande was touted as their great hope, a supposed midfield enforcer, but he’s fallen flat. He was anonymous at Celtic Park; Clement’s tactic of having him man-mark McGregor was about as spectacular a failure as you’ll ever see.

This pattern repeats across their squad.

So, they sit there with their coffee and biscuits, searching for a silver lining. Enter Igmane. Nobody has really seen him play, but he’s done a few fancy things in his limited time out, and that’s all the Daily Record needs to spin a feel-good story.

They seek out his former manager at Zulte Waregem for a glowing reference.

Even then, the best the manager could muster was faint praise. “Can he play at a very high level? That’s always difficult to predict, but I do think he can make another step.”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, is it?

There was the usual platitude-filled talk about his attributes, and vague mentions of interest from other clubs in France, not one bit of it backed up by hard facts. No one thought to ask why, if he was such a talent, the manager himself didn’t try to buy him for his current club. But when your aim is to boost a player’s profile, awkward questions don’t matter.

It’s a familiar song. Manager gives a player his debut, manager praises the player later. What did they expect? “I gave him his debut, but he’s actually not that good”? Of course not.

The fact that the Daily Record went fishing for this predictable testimonial and wrote it up as a huge exclusive shows how low they’ve sunk.

As we’ve discussed many times, it’s the Daily Record readers who are the real victims here, treated with the utmost contempt.

The paper pushes this obvious pro-Ibrox spin just when they need it most, assuming their audience will lap it up. Many do, because all that’s left of that audience now is the brain-dead Union Bears element who will swallow anything.

But the rest of us see through it. Igmane has barely played since arriving in Scotland. Sky had the balls to claim that he “impressed” against Celtic two weeks ago; did you even remember he’d gotten on the pitch? I didn’t until someone said that during the commentary of the United game. Now we’re supposed to believe he’s a superstar after a few nice touches in that match against a Dundee United side that offered little resistance?

We’ve heard this all before.

Remember when they signed Jefre and we were told he could one day play for Real Madrid, as if players typically go from the Cypriot league to the SPL and then to the pinnacle of European football? It’s laughable how they try to inflate the reputations of mediocre footballers, hoping someone, somewhere, will pay big money for them. They forget that world-class scouts don’t read their paper and aren’t fooled by this nonsense.

As Celtic fans, we’re used to this.

It’s why none of us read these rags and why we scorn their desperate attempts to spin a positive narrative for Ibrox. It drives them mad to see Celtic in such a strong position, and they have no idea how to handle it. That’s why these articles make me laugh—they reek of desperation, and they’re a symptom of not just a paper but an industry on its knees.

And yeah, because this was a “Keith Jackson Exclusive” I considered running it, word for word, as a Jackass piece to see who would assume it was a parody. It sure reads like one.