Tom English doesn’t get to pretend the last week of hysteria was nothing to do with him.

Yesterday, with no games involving us, I tuned into Radio Scotland to listen to the Hibs vs. Aberdeen match, which turned out to be a cracker. Aberdeen’s slump in form is now a full-on free fall, and they urgently need to address it before it spirals into something far more serious.

I knew Tom English would be on, so I was braced for it to be slightly unbearable. They also had Ian Maxwell on, and I expected him to deliver his usual dose of condescension. As I mentioned earlier today in the Kris Boyd piece, both of them performed exactly as I thought they would.

English, true to form, praised Willie Collum for his handling of the situation and pointed out that Collum had a dig at the media, suggesting this uproar was only happening because it involved the Ibrox club and ours. English even lamented how this story had dragged on for nearly a week.

And that’s precisely why I call him predictable. English played his part in ensuring this saga lasted a full week. Through his taunting, preening, and arrogant jibes at Celtic fans, he pushed the idea that some dark conspiracy was at play. And now he pretends not to realise that he is one of the people Collum was referring to in his comments about the media whipping up a frenzy.

When Collum talks about the media stirring the pot, does English think he’s in a different profession? Mate, that’s you he’s talking about! You’re one of the culprits. This whole “Who, me?” routine isn’t fooling anyone.

English has been one of the loudest voices during this past week of nonsense. So when Collum criticises the press, English doesn’t get to deflect it onto his colleagues as if he’s somehow above it all. No chance. He’s been right there in the muck, one of the loudest agitators, taunting Celtic fans even after Collum’s statement.

I also think his suggestion that this has been a particularly loud outcry only because it involves our club and theirs to be disingenuous bollocks.

Let’s be real here. The only reason this story has dragged on for a week is that the Ibrox club found itself on the wrong side of a decision.

That’s the sole reason for this media meltdown. If this had been them against Aberdeen, as English suggested, and the decision had favoured Ibrox we wouldn’t have heard a peep. But if Celtic had been the beneficiaries, you can bet your life we’d still be hearing about it days later.

I am beyond fed up with people like English.

They stir up controversy, whip up the storm, and then, when it all gets out of hand, pretend it was someone else’s doing. None of their arguments hold any weight. This isn’t about two teams—or rather, it is, but not in the way they maintain.

We all know how this works.

This week has been utterly embarrassing for the press corps, and English has made himself look the most ridiculous of the lot. To be fair, maybe he’s held to a higher standard because he works for the national broadcaster, but that’s the price of being on such a platform. I can’t hold him to the same standards as Keith Jackson or some of the other village idiots in the industry.

English is supposed to be better than this. His organisation is supposed to be better than this. But we all know what it’s filled with. The squealing from the media over the past week has been wretched to witness. And while I can almost take pleasure in their howls of pain, what I can’t abide is someone like English pretending he had no part in it. That’s where I draw the line.