The anti-Celtic media cries about paranoia whilst it continues to feed the machine.

Take a look at this headline. It is an anti-Celtic atrocity from the other day. It is stupid, hysterical, moon-howling nonsense, and it is fundamentally dishonest.

“Auston Trusty tells Celtic rivals Premiership is ‘our trophy to take’ as he airs Hearts conspiracy theory.”

A conspiracy theory? All the guy said is that there are people in Scotland who would prefer it if Hearts won the title. That is not a secret. That is not even controversial. It is a basic, observable fact. Even if you strip away the whole “anyone but Celtic” mindset that drives a lot of the coverage around Hearts this season, most neutrals would still prefer them to win it.

The reason is obvious. No club from outside Glasgow has done it since the 1980s. That alone makes it a compelling story.

So the headline is not just clickbait, it is a brazen distortion of what was actually said.

It takes a perfectly reasonable observation and dresses it up as something sinister. There is nothing remotely conspiratorial about acknowledging that people like an underdog story. There is certainly nothing outrageous about a Celtic player saying the title is ours to take when the current league flag flies over Celtic Park.

This is much ado about absolutely nothing.

Here is the actual quote:

“When someone new comes in, negativity sells. If Celtic or the big guys aren’t doing so well, Hearts could possibly win the league. People like that story a little better.”

So where is the conspiracy? Where is the wild claim? Where is the madness? There isn’t any. The idea that negativity sells is not new.

Celtic-in-crisis stories have always had an audience in this country. That is why the broken Celtic badge graphic never gets retired. That is why it gets dragged out every time the papers can find even the flimsiest excuse to slap it on the back page.

Indeed, what Trusty said is something anyone who has followed Scottish football for more than five minutes understands. The media thrives on narratives, and the most lucrative narrative is Celtic struggling. That is not paranoia. That is the business model.

So why is it that everything a Celtic player says gets reframed as a conspiracy theory? More importantly, why is it that reasonable comments get twisted into something else entirely?

If you want to talk about conspiracy theories, you don’t have to look very far. Just take a glance at some of the nonsense that has appeared in recent weeks about the post-split fixture list. Or look at the piece of dreck from Hugh Keevins that I wrote about earlier, where he dredged up the absurd suggestion that some people think St Mirren “lay down” to Celtic in 1986 at Love Street.

That, by the way, is the first time I have ever heard that claim. It is not something that has ever been part of the mainstream conversation.

Keevins did not mention it by accident. He used it as a framing device, a way to plant the idea that something similar could happen again. That is how these things work. You float the suggestion, you dress it up as history, and you let it hang in the air.

And yet, people accuse Celtic players of peddling conspiracy theories.

The truth is that the media loves a conspiracy theory.

It thrives on them and, if one is not readily available, it invents one. That is why a completely innocuous comment from Auston Trusty turns into a headline like that. It creates outrage. It generates clicks and fuels the cycle.

This will only get worse. Wait until they announce the post-split fixtures. The groundwork is already in place. There is a clear push for a Hearts versus Ibrox final-day scenario, framed as a potential title decider. On the surface, that sounds like storytelling. Underneath it, something else is going on.

What they are really doing is setting up a situation where, if Celtic need Hearts to drop points on the final day, Ibrox will control whether that happens. And if that scenario plays out, you already know what comes next.

They are putting all the pieces in place now. You would have to be wilfully blind not to see where this is heading. And that is why the idea that Celtic players are the ones pushing conspiracy theories is so absurd. The real nonsense comes from elsewhere, just as it always does.

What makes it worse is the sheer hypocrisy of it all. The same voices who spin these narratives, who hint at wrongdoing, who dress up speculation as analysis, are the ones who turn around and accuse fans of paranoia.

They sneer at supporters for questioning things, while simultaneously feeding the very environment that breeds those questions.

You cannot have it both ways. You cannot stoke suspicion and then mock people for being suspicious.

The media manufactures outrage and then acts shocked when people react to it.

Trusty’s comments were straightforward. They reflected the reality of how football is covered in this country.

In the end, this is not about what he said. It is about how quickly and how eagerly those words were twisted into something else. It is about a narrative machine that never stops, never rests, and never misses an opportunity to frame Celtic in a certain way.

And then they have the cheek to say it is the fans who are paranoid.

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