If Charlie Nicholas feels “unwelcome” at Celtic Park, he can simply stay away.

There are some people in the media you can just ignore because they’re stupid or ignorant. Then there are others—biased, bitter, and endlessly self-absorbed. Those ones exist to be mocked. They serve no higher purpose. They’re like dancing bears, there for our amusement, not our respect.

Credibility in the media comes in many forms. Sometimes it’s simply bestowed on someone by their colleagues. That’s what happened with people like The Village Idiot, who is still inexplicably paid by Sky Sports to make mouth noises and pretend it counts as analysis. The bias is glaring, and the intelligence is… well, absent. The idea of him as a “serious pundit” is a punchline.

The man’s as thick as a concrete milkshake.

Unfortunately, in football, and not just at Celtic, credibility often gets handed to former players the moment they start running their mouths about your club. I’ve moaned plenty about Pat Bonner on the BBC, but I don’t lose sleep over Bonner. He occasionally says something daft, but he’s a pro. A real pundit.

I’m not talking about Chris Sutton either. Sutton is a model of professionalism. He’s nobody’s cheerleader, and he stays well clear of that embarrassing “Uncle Tim” territory, trying to prove he’s not biased by being relentlessly negative.

He calls it as he sees it. If the board screws up, he says it. If the manager or players are underperforming, he’ll hammer them. But when we’re flying, he’s full of praise. That’s what a proper pundit looks like—someone who might not be totally objective, but who is honest, consistent and fair. I’ll take that all day long.

No, the two I’m talking about are Frank McAvennie and Charlie Nicholas.

McAvennie is our version of The Village Idiot—another man who should not be allowed near a microphone without adult supervision. A clown in a suit.

Nicholas is something else entirely.

Maybe I’m subconsciously bitter about the way he left Celtic the first time, but I genuinely can’t stand the guy. If there were a single ex-Celt I could remove from the airwaves permanently, it would be him. He talks absolute nonsense, but it’s the relentless negativity that really grates.

There’s a bitterness there that makes you wonder what we ever did to the man to turn him against us so completely.

Today, he’s been quoted all over the place, complaining that he no longer enjoys watching Celtic because his relationship with people inside the club has broken down. That’s not news. That’s not even mildly surprising. It’s been obvious for years that Nicholas doesn’t get any joy out of this club anymore. Read his columns. Listen to him speak. It’s written all over his face.

And here’s the thing—it’s not even clear if the people he’s angry with are still at the club. But he can’t let it go. He’s like a petty, bitter wee man nursing a grudge for decades. It’s pathetic.

Let me be blunt: the fact he doesn’t enjoy watching us anymore is not “news” either. Nobody thought he did. The man is one of the few media figures who’s been publicly criticised—by name—by more than one Celtic manager.

That’s rare. That’s remarkable. That says everything.

The interview he gave to SkyBet is being extensively quoted today, and it’s a mess. A fractured, incoherent, rambling mess—exactly the kind of jumbled, directionless nonsense we’ve come to expect from him.

He never had the intellect for a media career, and the fact he managed to scrape one together at all was astonishing. That Sky eventually cut him loose should have told him everything he needed to know—but apparently not. This is the same broadcaster, remember, that still finds work for The Village Idiot, so that bar isn’t high.

On top of that, Nicholas has been doing this same tale of woe for years. Back in December he was telling the same sob story about how the club has treated him badly, and it was just as absurd then as it is now. He’s always talking about how hard done by he is, as if that entitles him to a seat at the table. It doesn’t.

And this latest interview? It’s all over the place.

One minute he’s praising Rodgers for doing a brilliant job, the next he’s saying he spent £30 million last season and didn’t improve the team.

Didn’t improve the team? What the hell was he watching last season? We all saw the improvement. It was obvious to anyone with functioning eyes and half a brain. But Charlie Nicholas just says stuff—negative, destructive stuff—because that’s the only mode he knows. He’s a prisoner of his own bitterness.

Nobody cares what he thinks. Nobody at the club wants anything to do with him, and it’s no accident. Other former players are welcomed back with respect and affection. They earned that by respecting the club in return. Nicholas never has. Never. Not once. And I say that without the slightest hesitation.

Some fans defend him, pointing out that he signed for us three times, as if that proves something. Well, let’s unpack that.

First time, he came through the academy and was a darling of the stands who couldn’t wait to get out the door to chase the cash in England. Second time, he signed from Aberdeen, and has repeatedly said he regretted leaving them. Third time, he’d just been sacked by the club and Tommy Burns re-signed him as a gesture of faith. And how did he repay it? By phoning it in and doing nothing to justify that decision.

This is a guy who has managed to alienate everyone—fans, managers, former players, board members. That’s not bad luck. That’s not some great conspiracy. That’s on him.

If Charlie Nicholas doesn’t feel welcome at Celtic Park, maybe it’s because he’s not. Maybe it’s because he’s earned that cold shoulder.

Maybe he should stay away, and stop pretending he belongs in the place. I don’t think he’d miss us. I know we wouldn’t miss him.

Here’s the simple truth: in any tribe, the greatest sin is disloyalty.

And Nicholas has spent the better part of his professional career being disloyal to Celtic. The idea that he should be met with warmth and applause when all he brings is poison is absurd. He wants adulation. He wants thanks. But for what? For stabbing us in the front, back and sides again and again?

No. Not a chance. That’s never going to happen.

The relationship he has with the club is exactly the one he has earned. He needs to get comfortable with that. Because it’s permanent.