Gannon’s article on increasing the capacities at Celtic Park and Ibrox is ignorant rubbish.

Today, Michael Gannon has penned one of the most astonishing pieces of rubbish I’ve read in a long, long time. I’m not going to waste time writing a big long intro to this; let’s just jump in and dismantle it brick by brick.

Cavenagh and Ibrox takeover crew must wonder what it’ll be like if they crack it but supply cannot outstrip demand

They must be wondering why they are even bothering. But we’ll let that one slide for the moment, as we have bigger fish to fry.

It’s natural Ibrox fans see Leeds and think the builders could be sent into Ibrox.

Yeah cause all they ever do is look at what other people have got and imagine how good life would be if they had that particular shiny thing. Rebuilding Ibrox, if it’s a priority at all, is a long way down on the list. The new owners were at Leeds a long time before they bothered to do upgrades to the ground, and they only did those because they knew an EPL club needed a bigger stadium if they were to make any real money from match-day income. The need to upgrade Ibrox is not as clear; simply “having a bigger ground than Celtic” is not a business plan.

It’s hardly headline news there’s a rebuild needed at Ibrox this summer.

Isn’t there always? It’s literally incredible how often you hear that.

The squad have proved they are not up to the job and sorting out the team will be one of the first tasks for the new owners.

Maybe, and this is just a suggestion, they might want to try and find a manager with a record of making better the players that he inherits. Radical, I know, but I hear that some bosses have had success with it.

A new gaffer would be handy as well.

Well yes, and until he’s in the building how do you know if you really need the squad rebuild? This is a case of putting the cart before the horse.

It’s may or may not be Davide Ancelotti and if it’s the latter then it doesn’t sound like too much of a blow.

The one thing I am sure of; there are always worse options, and if he’s the one the board thinks is t he best it takes a failure of imagination on a colossal scale not to try to imagine how much worse it could be.

Junior might turn out to be a top-class boss on his own merit but Ibrox is no place to be finding out if you have the chops.

Why isn’t it? Oh I agree that under the present circumstances, and scrutiny there are few worse places in football, but eventually that club needs to know its place and start to adapt to life as they are and not how they wish they were. Eventually, they need someone who doesn’t have a great record, someone who is relatively new in the business, willing to come in and put down some foundations. A long time ago my mate said to me that what they need is a “Michael Howard”: in short, a guy who knows he’s never going to be Prime Minister but sees his job is moving the party from disaster to somewhere people might consider voting for them again.

It’s a gig that can have experienced gaffers looking a bit Lloyd Bridges in Airplane!

Dreadful cultural reference, completely without context. The modern audience isn’t going to get that joke at all. I guess I picked the wrong week to quit critiquing shit journalism and terrible writing.

Whoever gets the nod will need serious help on the recruitment side.

Yeah even if that sort of help grew on trees it wouldn’t grow between now and the start of the next campaign. These people are impervious to the idea that what they have in mind is going to take time … and that’s the one luxury nobody at Ibrox gets.

But what about the next items on the agenda? Like Ibrox itself.

These people have no idea what the priorities of the Americans will be. Everything at this point is guesswork, and it’s not great guesswork either.

There has to be a case for increasing the capacity.

This is where these people – who barely understand journalism, the field in which they allegedly work – show themselves up in trying to understand complex concepts. In order to undertake the work these people seem to think needs doing at Ibrox you would have to undertake what’s known as a cost/benefit analysis; in short, if we do this how much would it cost, and what sort of timeframe would be needed in order for us even to get back the money we’ve outlaid to do it? The current Ibrox board has gone over this time and time again; the numbers do not add up.

This might not be the best time to bring it up, given there have been plenty of empty seats of late. At least those seats were already bought and paid for.

Those seats are empty because of the dire performance of the team and so that’s a much bigger issue that these people are letting on, and no matter what these clowns seem to think there is not going to be an unlimited pot of money to spend. Everything will have to be justified to the bean counters, and these are not going to be Peepul with the club’s best interests at heart. Money spent on one part of the project will not be available to spend somewhere else. It’s incredible how badly thought through these sorts of articles are. And this one is a beauty.

And that’s the key. There’s a big demand from fans to watch their side – and that’s even when they are honking.

Arrant rubbish. Let me explain how this works; fans buy season tickets at the start when the promise of “jam tomorrow” is still valid. When it becomes clear that the jam will not be provided there is a natural fall-off in terms of interest. How much interest there will be in filling additional seats will be decided by what happens on the pitch. This is a very simple equation; success sells tickets and so the success has to come first, or you are going to end up with what you have now. Empty seats.

Fair play to them. These supporters have had to put up with more than most.

Unpardonable rubbish of the purest sort. They won a title within the last five years. Ask the fans of Aberdeen, Dundee Utd, Hearts, Hibs and others how it feels to go far, far, far, far longer without one. The idea that their fans have “put up with more than most” is the most ignorant garbage you could put into words. This year is a grisly anniversary; it’s been 40 years since a team from outside Glasgow won a title. Talk to fans outside of this city – Hell talk to Queens Park and Thistle fans – about putting up with the staff, I can guarantee you they’ve put up with more than any Ibrox fan has.

It’s part of the reason Andrew Cavenagh and his 49ers pals are getting involved. If this is the support they get when they are not very good, just imagine what it would be like if they crack it.

More outright rubbish and honestly contemptible for it. They will find out soon enough what the Ibrox fans are like when things aren’t going well; their “involvement” is only being sought because the current board, who love the club and have sunk their own money into that bottomless pit, feel hounded out the building by the most ungrateful supporters in Europe. And that will be apparent to the Americans before long.

And that’s where Ibrox comes in. The Americans already have Leeds United on the books and plan to extend Elland Road.

Leeds United have a stadium which holds just over 36,000 and they want to be able to stand tall with the big boys. Their plans are for a stadium smaller than Celtic Park is right now. If anyone thinks they will sink millions into bringing Ibrox up to that level they are barking. If they won’t build Leeds a ground the size of Celtic Park, with Premiership exposure and all the rest of it, they aren’t doing it here.

It’s natural Ibrox fans see that and think the builders could be sent around Govan pretty soon.

Their fans also expected Jose Mourinho to be unveiled as manager. How’s that particular dream panning out for them so far?

It would make sense.

Only if you switch off all your critical faculties and let your imagination run wild.

You just have to look across the city at Celtic and see what their extra 10,000 seats does for the coffers. It’s worth £3-4million a year extra and more if you chuck in a European run.

Ridiculous. Our advantage is much greater than that. And this, again, is a classic example of what that club constantly does. They spend all their time trying to be Celtic, or to best Celtic; when will they be satisfied with simply being the best version of themselves that they can be? Do they even know what that is?

That’s easy money just waiting to be snapped up with a bit of investment.

Easy money. Yeah, it just requires the spending of tens of millions of other people’s money first, and a solid business plan to justify it. This is so simplistic it’s almost child-like. The whole article is preposterous but that paragraph more than most.

Apparently there’s more than 15,000 on the waiting list through the MyGers loyalty scheme. While you’re not going to get all of them taking up season books, you’d expect a fair whack would if they like what they are hearing.

If you believe that there are 15,000 fans on their season ticket waiting list I have a bridge you can buy. MyGers is a gigantic scam and one of the worst things ever inflicted on football supporters anywhere. I am amazed it has a single member left.

There’s a sweet spot though – and it’s the same for Celtic. You’ll hear some supporters talking about ramping up the grounds to 75,000 or even 80k.

A lot of fans. You know why it’s not happened? Because the costs to do it are incredible and that’s where the cost/benefit analysis comes in; there is no way to make the numbers add up in the short to medium term. Does this clown think Celtic don’t want to extend the stadium? It’s not financially viable at the moment and we prefer to deal with the reality of that. I understand that’s an alien concept elsewhere.

But there is no chance. Both could get those numbers for derbies and big Euro ties. But the rest? Doubtful.

But Ibrox has a 15,000 waiting list and so the additional money is there for the taking over there, but not at Celtic Park? This article is a joke, right? It’s a wind-up.

And they also need to be careful not to let supply outstrip demand.

Because we don’t have a waiting list, right? Oh wait, yeah … we actually do.

The Ibrox club and Celtic need the demand to be high for season tickets as they front load their finances.

What does that even mean? We need demand to be high? Demand at Celtic is high. That comes from success. That comes from constantly winning things.

Add another 20,000 seats and they’d remove the need to buy season tickets at all. Sure, it might be a bun fight for the big matches but they’d be more inclined to pick and choose. Taking away the necessity to jump on board at the start would create uncertainty in the coffers.

Utter rubbish. So if there were 20,000 more seats at Celtic Park the current season ticket base would collapse because suddenly there would be seats available for every game? Says who? The number of fans who might not buy season tickets on that basis is probably vanishingly small. People like having their own seat at Parkhead. They like sitting in a certain area with their mates. This has been written by a hack who hasn’t had to pay to attend a game in years, and so has forgotten what makes going to games as a paying customer so much fun in the first place. Clueless rubbish.

Celtic will sit tight on 60k as long as they can and (the Ibrox side) should be aiming to match it or not too much more. But maybe give Hampden a bye this time when the builders are in…

Dreadful end to a dreadful piece. Celtic has discussed this fans over and over again; the costs associated with adding seats are just too high and it is not financially justifiable right now. Ibrox adding ten thousand seats just to say that they have a stadium the size of ours is pathetic point scoring … and you would think it was possible to do it for free reading rubbish like this. As to that end part … if you’re going to do it at all that means moving out of your own ground for a while. And if it’s not Hampden you have two options; Murrayfield in Edinburgh or … haha … Celtic Park when we’re not using it. How do you think that idea would over?