LIVINGSTON, SCOTLAND - FEBRUARY 22: Sky Sports Pundit Chris Sutton looks on during a William Hill Premiership match between Livingston and Rangers at the Home of the Set Fare Arena, on February 21, 2026, in Livingston, Scotland. (Photo by Alan Harvey/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Is it just me, or is Chris Sutton becoming a pain in the arse?
I know James has already written about this, but I have been stewing about this for ages and I just want to vent in light of his appearance on a BBC podcast yesterday.
We are in the middle of a massive title race, Celtic have just put together two important wins, and who opens his mouth again? Mr Sutton, talking as if this team has no chance, as if the Ibrox club are the ones with all the momentum and as if Celtic should already accept defeat. When was the last time he appeared on a BBC podcast?
Why does he think they invited him? For God’s sake man, wake up.
Normally, I would listen to him. He is supposed to be the Celtic expert. He knows the club, he knows the pressure, and sometimes he diagnoses the situation properly. When he says Celtic need a rebuild, for example, I agree. That is obvious.
But this is different.
Now it feels like he is drifting away from analysis and into something else entirely. Saying Celtic have less chance of winning the title, while talking up the Ibrox club, is not some great piece of insight. It looks more like exaggeration for the sake of attention.
Let’s remind ourselves what Sutton said before the weekend.
He suggested Celtic would drop points across all of these games. What actually happened? We beat Falkirk 3-1. The squad woke up. Maeda came back to life. He is scoring goals again, and according to Callum McGregor, there is still a real will inside that dressing room to fight and win this title.
So, Sutton predicted Celtic would stumble, and Celtic proved him wrong.
That is why a lot of us are fed up listening to him now.
I wish Chris Sutton would haud his wheesht for a while.
As a Celtic fan, I have had enough of the daft comments and the constant doom. The more he says Celtic don’t have a chance, and the more he talks up the Ibrox club’s chances, the less it sounds like expert analysis. It starts to sound like noise.
To be honest, Sutton’s analysis feels as if it is drifting away from reality. How can an ex-Celtic player, supporter and supposed expert write this club off so easily? Does he not believe Celtic can still find a way to win? Does he not believe this club can overcome struggle?
A faithful Celtic voice should not be blind. I am not saying that.
Nobody needs to pretend everything is perfect, because it isn’t. Celtic have had a poor season by our standards. Mistakes have been made. The squad has underperformed. The club has created a lot of its own problems. But there is a difference between honest criticism and constantly talking as if the team is finished.
That is where Sutton is losing people.
What shocked me most was him tipping the Ibrox club to win the title as if that is the natural outcome. I mean, seriously? Have we watched the same league? Have we seen the same pressure? Did we not just watched them lose at home to Motherwell?
Celtic still have work to do, no question. But the Ibrox club are hardly some unstoppable machine. They are unstable. They are under pressure and they have shown they can crack. If they can lose to Motherwell, they can lose to Celtic.
That is just common sense.
The facts are very different from Sutton’s tone.
He said Celtic would drop points, and instead Celtic kept winning. Celtic have huge experience in title run-ins. This club has players who know how to handle pressure and how to get over the line when the will and motivation are there.
That does not mean the title is guaranteed. It is not. Celtic still need to be close to perfect. But it does mean that writing them off is foolish. If Celtic lift the trophy at the end of this season, Sutton will have to answer for a lot of this. He will have to explain why he doubted a team that kept proving him wrong on the pitch.
I keep asking myself what he is actually doing here.
Is this analysis, or is he just chasing a reaction? James thinks he’s trying to get one out of the Celtic team. I am listening to it now and thinking, “I am not hearing proper football reasoning anymore. I am hearing someone throwing out lines to get people talking.”
Controversy sells. But I want insight. I want something that makes me think, “aye, fair point.” I am not getting that. Instead, I am sitting there wondering what on earth he is talking about.
I can’t shake the feeling that he is stirring things for the sake of it, rather than telling us anything real about the game. That is where it starts to fall apart for me. If I see Celtic being written off again and again, and then I watch them go out and win again and again, I am going to start questioning the man saying it.
I already am. I find myself switching off when I hear his takes now. Not raging. Not even arguing back. Just done with it. I know I won’t be the only one. A lot of Celtic fans are reaching the point where we are not even biting anymore. We are just dismissing it.
That is a dangerous place for any pundit to be, because once supporters stop taking you seriously, it is hard to win that trust back. So where does that leave it?
For me, it is simple. I hear Sutton talk. I hear Celtic being doubted. Then I watch what actually happens on the pitch.
Right now, I am seeing Celtic handle their business. They are not dispatching teams with ease, but it’s easier than he makes it sound. Maybe he should think about it reigning it in for a while. He’s becoming a bore.
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Sutton has always been a stirrer and a wind-up merchant. Much of what he says is extremely tongue-in-cheek. If he’s tipping Sevco to win the league even now I imagine it’s because he’s hoping the reverse psychology of it will heap even more pressure on them and they’ll buckle under it…..
Pinch or two of salt required here. Club legend that he is for us, everyone knows the big man is a contrary wind up merchant who has little regard for the subject as long as he baits his fish.
Big Chris is always worth listening to, he is one of the very few pundits that tells it like it is, despite the comments elsewhere from the anti-Celtic mob. So what if he gets it wrong now and again, we all do that, and let’s face it this Celtic side has drew criticism from all of us for most of the season. I’ll tell you what though, no one will be more delighted than the big man if he does get the odd negative comment wrong.
Paula the big man’s at it, apparently when he was a player at Celtic he used to say ” we’re going to lose three or four today” before every game no matter who the opponent was. I think he used it as a way of making himself play better and I think that’s what he’s doing here too, he’s trying to use a negative to make a positive. The big fulla knows what he’s doing and he’s one of, if not the only, inciteful pundits out there in the Scottish game, I think you’re getting yourself upset for nothing, he is as other commenters have said a wind up merchant and it’s just his way of hoping that he gets the players angry enough to prove him wrong.
I agree. He’s trying to catch a lot of Gullibilly Trout during the Gullibilly Trout season. At the end of the season he’ll take it to market and we’ll all enjoy some Fish suppers.. HH
I could be wrong here but I think big Sutton is lining up a whole river bank of fishing lines for an end of season haul. The Gullibilly Trouts are a famous fish & easily snared by this type of patter line…
Big Sutton is hoping to take all his Gullibilly fish to market at the end of the season.
Like everyone else i think he is on the wind up
‘Is it just me, or is Chris Sutton becoming a pain in the arse?’
It’s just you.
Lol. Sutton knows more about inside Celtic,MON and how to win leagues than any of us and perhaps,just perhaps he is giving an honest assessment of a mediocre version of Celtic that is still clinging on .Three points won by Diazen Maeda against Falkirk but bar him we are still incoherent,lacking in quality and a football style.
I think Sevco’s wee sunny bonding session may have worked against them in that first half of theirs.
Sutton isn’t saying we can’t win it he is saying he doesn’t think we will, and I agree with him as we are chronic but the more we win the odds against us lessen. Perhaps it’s a tactic, conscious or unconscious to heap pressure on Sevco by making them favourites as we all know their previous for stumbling in those conditions.
Sutty is a great Celtic man especially in the msm which is riddled with Sevco bias. His wind-ups of Sevco fans are legendary and no one and I mean no one would love us to win this league more than Sutty.
This article cropped up on my Facebook feed with the headline,
Chris Sutton, haud yer wheesht man.
Chris Sutton, you are a great man.
(Translated from Arabic)
If you seriously can’t see what big Sutton is doing here, I don’t think you understand him at all! He’s piling the pressure on the Huns with these comments! If you had the first clue what he was like, there would be no need for this article! If you genuinely believe that Sutton thinks we don’t have a chance then I don’t know what to say. It’s as obvious as the nose on the end of ur face, what he’s tryin to do! ????????????