Andy Halliday is not happy that Celtic fans are laughing at him.

Once again, it is nice to hear what has been going on with Andy Halliday. As you know, there are some sites that just can’t stop telling Celtic fans how these guys are, what they’re thinking and what they’re saying about our club.

But I’m going to let those people off the hook today, because they came up with a rather amusing take on Halliday this morning when they quoted his latest comments on the Open Goal podcast.

I don’t know if they were trying to stick up for him. I don’t know if Paul Slane, or whoever else was involved, was trying to suggest that Halliday has somehow been hard done by.

But when he was asked about the footage of his face absolutely tripping him at Ibrox, after Motherwell had recorded a major victory and Stephen Welsh had celebrated rather aggressively and loudly, Halliday said it was a reaction to the commotion.

What he did not deny was being pissed off.

That was the question.

Everyone could see what was the matter with Halliday. Everyone could see that he was angry, bitter and frustrated after watching his favourite team lose. It didn’t matter to him that the team he currently plays for had inflicted the beating.

For a moment, the truth was right there, written all over his face.

You could see it.

Even now, he is not really denying the fact of it. He is denying that it’s the result that he was reacting to. He is telling us to ignore the evidence of our own eyes. He is saying it was not the kind of reaction we all thought it was.

But let’s be serious. Of course it was.

There have been a handful of people from over there who have gone into the media and genuinely managed to keep themselves from reacting in a partisan way. I like Steven Thompson at the BBC. I will freely admit that. I think he usually offers a reasonable and fair assessment of the games he is asked to talk about.

Like everyone else, he likes a bit of controversy, and that is why I sometimes find myself disagreeing with him, especially when it comes to Celtic. But overall, I think Thompson is a good professional and a fair guy.

Others wear their biases on their sleeve, and I can barely listen to them for longer than five minutes.

Halliday does not even pretend to be anything other than what he is, so I don’t know why he is particularly bothered by this story. Paul Slane’s idea that people were “coming for him” is ridiculous. Nobody was coming for him.

We were laughing at him. That is not the same thing.

We were commenting on how miserable he looked, and he always looks miserable when the Ibrox club loses. There is nothing especially controversial, surprising or original in that observation.

It always amuses me when people like this frantically try to pretend that the evidence of our own eyes can be safely ignored.

Come on, Andy Halliday. We know what we watched. We know you were upset. We know that wearing a Motherwell shirt right now does not stop you from getting annoyed when you see your favourite team lose.

Just as we know that Stephen Welsh’s unrefined joy was not simply about getting a great result for his current club, but about getting a great result for the side he is on loan from.

That was written all over his face too.

The difference is that Welsh would not try to pretend otherwise.

I don’t know why Halliday seems so irritated that people have drawn attention to it. I don’t know why he is so annoyed that people noticed. I’ve seen him troop off the pitch at Celtic Park after his team has lost looking exactly like that.

It is to be expected from someone who clearly detests our club.

I have no issue with what Halliday did. I have no problem with someone who cannot keep his face straight and who gives away what he is thinking.

He is a football person. He is a fan as well as a player. I completely understand where he was coming from and what the attitude was about.

But that is precisely why I cannot take him seriously as a pundit.

A pundit is supposed to offer a neutral perspective, or at least one based on fact rather than emotion. Halliday does not do that. He reacts emotionally because this stuff matters to him personally. That is fine. But let’s not pretend he can do analysis.

I was not objecting to the fact that a Motherwell player was not particularly happy about Motherwell winning at Ibrox. That is for Motherwell itself to consider. If they are fine with one of their players looking gutted after they win one of the biggest games of their season, that is their business.

What I object to is the idea that people like Halliday are detached enough to offer an impartial view on anything involving Celtic or the club across the city.

That is the part that makes me laugh.

That is the issue. That is why we wrote about it.

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