Well, it wouldn’t have been a win over a Derek McInnes team without Derek McInnes having something to complain about at the end of it. It wouldn’t be a win over a Derek McInnes team if he didn’t refuse to give you any credit. It wouldn’t be a victory over a Derek McInnes team if he wasn’t pointing the finger at the referee and insisting it was the officials who were to blame for the defeat.
Before the game, I said one thing we know about McInnes is that his teams give everything against us. I even gave him credit, by the way, by reminding people that his teams often give everything against the club across the city as well.
But he just can’t resist a moan when Celtic beat him.
Funny how he never does that when the team across the road does the same. In fact, when they absolutely trounced McInnes’s side a few months ago, and he sucked up to them so mightily in the aftermath, that many Ibrox fans publicly declared that, no matter how nice he was about their team post-match, he’d blown his chances of ever managing them.
Once upon a time, I would have sworn McInnes was permanently auditioning for that job. Then, of course, when it was offered, he turned it down. But you’ll notice he made sure, during Philippe Clement’s time of maximum pressure, that the story of why he rejected it conveniently resurfaced in the press.
A subtle way of saying, “If I were offered it now, I’d probably take it.”
There’s something underhanded about that, don’t you think? A little Michael Beale-like, even. There’s always something insidious about McInnes’s excuses when we beat him. No matter how convincingly we do it, he’ll find a reason to complain—about every goal, every decision, every bounce of the ball.
His whining about the second goal yesterday was pathetic.
The irony? His team’s equaliser was incredibly controversial. When you’ve had that kind of luck, you really shouldn’t be pointing fingers at officials. You shouldn’t be suggesting they could have done their jobs better.
Maybe McInnes should look in the mirror. If he’d done his job better yesterday, they might not have gone out with a whimper.
Because let’s be real here: they did go out with a whimper. For all the BBC and others have said about how well Kilmarnock played, how they pushed us to the end, the truth is we pushed ourselves. As I said in the match report, we missed enough chances to win ten games. So McInnes can tell himself all he wants that we were lucky. In reality, if we didn’t have bad luck yesterday, we’d have had none at all.
In many ways, McInnes is a lucky manager.
He was fortunate to beat us in the League Cup last season when Rodgers was still finding his feet. Brendan inherited a group of new signings who turned out to be not very good, and he had to learn that the hard way. McInnes’s team nicked a draw in the league soon after, but once Rodgers figured him out, we never looked back. Kilmarnock haven’t laid a glove on us since.
Most of the time, when a manager complains post-match, I assume they’ve got some kind of legitimate grievance, even if it’s one I don’t agree with. Managers do get upset after close games where they’ve come away empty-handed.
But when McInnes complains, it’s not legitimate. It’s just bitterness—a permanent grievance about the mere existence of Celtic. It comes from a deep well of bias and pain. Real pain. He genuinely suffers when we win.
So, in many ways, it was incredibly satisfying yesterday seeing his little outburst. In some ways it was as enjoyable as watching The Village Idiot have a meltdown on live TV or that moron Neil McCann stamping his feet on the BBC or demanding SFA investigations into referees and conspiracies; it’s always the same nonsense and I tend to find it all pretty hilarious, if also a little tedious.
All I can say to Derek McInnes today, in light of his rant yesterday, is this: few things in life are as satisfying as his tears, and few things are funnier than seeing him cry. We’re in the next round, and he’s not. And if it weren’t so childish, I might just be singing him a wee ballad he’ll remember from school; “Na-na-na-na-na-na.”
Michael Hutchence was right; Bitter tears really do taste so sweet.
Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images
And yet again, the team he manages will win FUCK ALL.
Boo Hoo and go home ya hun.
He seemingly backstabbed Tony Docherty at Kilmarnock,hence the split,the man’s a shitehouse
And, is there any other managers in scottish football who also acts as pundit on there fav team.if I was a killie fan i would be raging at his media portfolio. Just saying as I always find it weird
He’s a scruffy lookin C U Next Tuesday !
Poor Derek! He was so much better when he was a Morton player, and a good one at that!
The minute he decided to enter Mordor, like so many others, the darkness descended!
Our club have handed out so many thumpings
to his teams, that you can understand his pain!!!
However, you can never excuse his rudeness and lack of courtesy!!
Long may we thump his teams ! HH