Delusion Ibrox fans utterly humiliated as ex-Celt mocks mad comparison.

I’ve seen plenty of things doing this job that left my jaw on the floor with their sheer stupidity, but The Peepul can always surprise you with how daft they are.

This weekend has produced a perfect example of that.

I’ve already written a couple of pieces on the strange things their fans believe. Just last week, I covered how some of them convinced themselves that after Thursday night’s game, they’d found the midfield that’s going to put ours to shame.

Yesterday, I wrote about the alleged debate over Kyogo and Dessers.

Some on the other side of the city are claiming Dessers is the victim of a media conspiracy to downplay his scoring while ignoring that Kyogo has scored less than he has since last August. This is exactly the kind of nonsense they feed themselves.

Last night, I saw a clip that ties back to the debate about the midfield situation. They’re genuinely convinced they’re watching a standout partnership between Connor Barron and Nico Raskin. Look, we all like to believe in the potential of certain players. But what we cannot do is create a fantasy world and expect everyone else to live in it.

I mentioned the media in my article yesterday, particularly in how Celtic’s manager now treats them with a certain contempt, and I talked about their penchant for writing biased nonsense. Later on, I did a piece on the stories that some of them sat down with the Ibrox hierarchy the other day and were asked to toe the line; in short, to lie.

What I didn’t say is that the biggest lies The Peepul are told are often the ones they tell themselves. It’s an endless cycle. I’ll give you an example.

Just the other night, a handful of them tuned in to watch Celtic face RB Leipzig, fully expecting to see us get hammered. This was based on two things: the Dortmund result in all its horror, and Leipzig’s high standing in the Bundesliga.

All were in agreement: Leipzig are top-class, and we’d be outclassed at home.

But when we actually won and controlled the game, what do you think they said? “Celtic were brilliant”? Of course not. They claimed Leipzig just weren’t that good and even went as far as to suggest the squad had been downsized.

Let’s set this straight: Leipzig’s squad is worth five times what ours is. They currently sit second in the Bundesliga, just five points behind Bayern Munich.

But instead of accepting that we have a strong side with talented players, they’ll do and say anything to convince themselves we aren’t a team to fear. Admitting it would mean facing some uncomfortable truths about their own squad’s ability to catch us.

The same goes for this ridiculous Kyogo vs. Dessers debate. Some of this nonsense is rooted in the belief that our players aren’t actually that good, that they only look impressive in Scotland but aren’t really up to par. You’d be amazed how often this pops up on their fan sites, alongside the idea that all they need to do is hold out for bigger bids on their own players, and they’ll expose our transfer strategy as flawed.

On Friday night, an Ibrox fan podcast called Rangers Rabble presented a classic case of delusion. There’s a strange mix of beliefs over there: that their players are better than they are, that our players are overrated, that our transfer strategy is just hype, and that all they need to do is overhype their players and wait for big bids to come in and fill the coffers.

The point of their discussion was Connor Barron, the player from Aberdeen who, as the league table shows, they haven’t missed at all.

He’s the current darling of the Ibrox fanbase and the media, which I think is perfect timing since a tribunal will soon decide how much they’ll need to pay Aberdeen for him. Based on the hype, they should be forking out a fortune, except for one small issue: he’s not worth a fortune.

But don’t tell that to the folks on Rangers Rabble.

They’d think that’s just another conspiracy to downplay their players’ talent, especially after one of them made the laughable claim that if Barron starts scoring, he’ll be worth more than Matt O’Riley. The implication seemed to be that O’Riley isn’t that great and Brighton overpaid for him – a view that almost no credible person actually holds.

I loved watching O’Riley in a Celtic shirt, and I knew he was too talented to stay here indefinitely. My hope was that we’d get a strong transfer fee for him when he eventually moved on. Given we only paid a million for him, it seemed logical we’d make a massive profit, as O’Riley – especially under Rodgers – looks like the complete midfielder.

No one but an absolute fool would have scorned the fee we got with such a comparison. To suggest that Connor Barron is on par with Matt O’Riley is pure fantasy.

Barron isn’t in O’Riley’s league, and he never will be.

O’Riley is only a year older, yet he’s got an arm load of winner’s medals, has scored goals in European competitions, and maintained a goal ratio of one in four games at Celtic, alongside a notable number of assists.

He was a pivotal player for us, a cornerstone in the squad, and although we’ve managed to fill the void with capable replacements, no one in the midfield currently offers a comparable goal and assist contribution. Maeda and Kuhn have stepped up to mitigate this loss to some extent, with their dazzling play on the flanks, but there’s no doubt the central midfield’s goal tally has dropped since he left.

Barron and O’Riley play completely different roles, which makes this so-called “comparison” ridiculous from the outset. It’s akin to saying that if Liam Scales added goals to his game, he’d be up there outshining Messi; it’s meaningless blather in the context of how different the two players are, not so much comparing apples and oranges and as apples and bowling balls.

Barron doesn’t score goals; it’s not his natural game. He’s not, and never has been, an attacking midfielder. Aberdeen fans will tell you that.

In nearly 80 games for Aberdeen, Barron managed just two goals—a stark contrast to O’Riley’s record. In case it’s not clear for thick Sevconian’s, that’s not a goal every four games, that’s a goal every forty. I doubt Brendan Rodgers himself could get much more out of him in that regard, and the coach he’s working with ain’t no Brendan Rodgers.

Despite being at Ibrox for a while now, Barron hasn’t shown substantial improvement. He’s the same player he was at Aberdeen. The fact he stands out in the Ibrox midfield says more about their decline than his progress. It doesn’t imply he’s become a top player; it’s a reflection on the lower cadre of talent they can currently afford.

I know it’s painful for some fans to admit, but that’s the reality.

The Ibrox club has a track record of overhyping their players and then being let down when those players can’t live up to expectations. It’s a pattern they repeat time and time again. They hype these players to the moon, then seem baffled when they crash back to Earth.

We saw it with Raskin—just a few good games, and they were talking as if he were a superstar. He’s not. He never will be. But it takes just a couple of decent performances for them to start talking as if they’ve uncovered the next Pirlo.

To me, Connor Barron is a younger version of John Lundstram. Hard worker? Sure. But there’s no shortage of hard workers in football. Grafting alone doesn’t make someone a top player. And once again, they’re piling expectations on a player who can’t bear the weight.

I thought I’d written the last word on this topic just the other day, but then that video surfaced this afternoon. Not ten minutes after I watched it, I saw Matt O’Riley score his debut goal for Brighton—against the best team in the world right now, no less.

The guys in that video should be thoroughly embarrassed. Because tonight, the talk of European football is one of these two players, and it’s not their guy. It’s the overhyped, overrated waste of money we supposedly offloaded to Brighton.

You couldn’t make it up. Fortunately, we don’t have to. We have The Peepul to keep us amused—even if it’s sometimes hard not to cringe on their behalf.