The Mourinho and Benitez stories are the proof of an Ibrox support unmoored from reality.

One key difference between our fans and the fans across the city is that we’ve always had a better relationship with reality than they do. We’ve been able to look at a situation and know, almost instantly, whether we were looking at something real or something completely fantastical and fake.

We can assess news stories and immediately recognise when they belong in the realms of fiction. And the more you look at the stuff surrounding this Ibrox takeover story, the harder it all is to believe.

I do think there’s something in it. I’ve said that from the start. There is too much noise around this one for it to be completely fabricated. Something is going on behind the scenes. Whether it’s King talking to people or whether he’s managed to rope other directors into the mix, something is happening, and that something may lead to a full takeover—if Ibrox can finally get its ducks in a row.

But some of the stuff surrounding the takeover, or this alleged investment, is irrational—if we’re being generous. Some of the names being thrown about as potential managers make me want to laugh uproariously. Rafa Benítez? José Mourinho? Are these people out to lunch, or what? Neither of them is a realistic prospect.

Listen, there are people in the media discussing Benítez and asking if he’s too old for the job. Benítez could be 85 and that wouldn’t be the central question. The real question would be: why, in God’s name, would he want to go there? And Mourinho making some offhand remark about how he could coach at either Celtic Park or Ibrox one day? That doesn’t impress me one bit.

Our club has a style of play which he would first stifle and then destroy. I have no inclination to see his brand of defensive football anywhere near Celtic Park. The media likes to dig us over him, but had John Hartson played in the Seville final the world at large might never have heard of the guy. The “style” of football he played that night was negative and cynical. No thank you.

The likelihood of him moving to Scotland anyway is, as we all know, exactly zero. And in any case, we have a perfectly good manager, one we’re perfectly happy with. As long as we can keep him, who cares what Mourinho thinks? Mourinho, by the way, is about to sign a brand-new contract with Fenerbahçe, so this is nothing but gossip and he’s only interested in his own headlines.

But it’s the kind of gossip that has excited the fans across the city. They’re about to play Fenerbahçe. They’re about to play Mourinho’s team. But they’re not thinking about the game—they’re thinking about next season. They’re thinking about American millions. And they can’t stop themselves from getting carried away. Just as people in the media can’t stop themselves from getting carried away.

The hyperbole has been relentless since the takeover story broke, and you get the impression that it won’t stop until these people are actually in power over there and reveal their plans. But yesterday, notably, even Jackson was starting to backpedal somewhat. He knocked the Benítez story on the head and said people were getting ahead of themselves.

And this is a theme I wanted to explore, because people really are getting way out in front with their expectations and their plans. See, our media is very good at spending other people’s money. It’s very good at telling other people how they should spend money. And so is the Ibrox support.

But these potential investors know what they want to do. They know what they want to spend. They know their limits. And they know that the only way to extract any profit from that club is to run it properly.

It just doesn’t seem to have dawned on certain people that the expectations the Americans have, and the plans they have, might not automatically align with their own fantasies. I would bet against these people being entirely pleased with what they get.

The Benítez and Mourinho stories, and the idea that they might be tempted to Ibrox, are just the tip of the iceberg. Celtic fans would never swallow this stuff. Celtic fans in their position would never take these kinds of crazy stories even remotely seriously. And it doesn’t stop with managers.

All this talk about £20m and £30m transfer budgets is for the birds. It’s absolute lunacy, yet so many of them are ready to embrace it as though it were guaranteed.

The small number of hacks making these big spending commitments on behalf of people they haven’t even spoken to are more dangerous to the well-being of the Ibrox fans than Brendan Rodgers could ever hope to be. Those trying to sell them on the idea that it’ll be Benítez or Mourinho, or someone of that calibre, are only building them up for the biggest letdown of their lives.

As I said the other day, one site is actually using the American takeover story as a reason to believe they may spend £8m on Cerny. That simply isn’t going to happen.

It’s all part of the same pattern. And let me tell you something—it is going to be highly entertaining watching reality hit them like a hammer.

Because reality is going to be nothing like what they’re imagining right now. And I don’t mean that in a good way. The more overexcited they get, the more they let their hopes run wild, the greater the disappointment will be.

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