The Scottish media trawls a new sewer in its quest for anti-Celtic material.

The media really is desperate now to find any anti-Celtic voice it can find.

I was astonished today to read a bitter, ugly rant from Eyal Berkovic appearing in our national press, where he went off against Celtic and, bizarrely, against Martin O’Neill, whom he described as “the evil Haman of football.” Apparently, this is some reference to an ancient figure from the Hebrew Bible.

It is a rant so unhinged that even the Scottish media, with its endless appetite for anti-Celtic angles wherever it can find them, should have steered well clear of it, if for no other reason than his convenient rewrite of his time in Scotland.

According to Berkovic, he wanted to leave after just one game, a game in which, naturally, he now seems to think he was absolutely fabulous.

The whole thing was so bizarre that I actually considered not bothering to respond at all. But these were criticisms of Celtic, and then there was the rest of it, and if you are not responding to this as a Celtic blogger, then you are probably not doing your duty to the club.

He at least remembers the team we played and what the result was. That much is something, I suppose. But if his contention is that he was on the phone to his agent straight after the game asking for a transfer, I would like to know why.

I would like to know what that was about.

I would like to know what motivated it, because that is not a usual thing for players to do after one game of football. It is just a nutty claim to make and it doesn’t make Celtic sound like a bad club; it makes him sound like a screaming baby having a tantrum.

Here’s the other thing. The reason O’Neill is getting it in the neck is that it was O’Neill who, as Berkovic puts it, “sacked” him. In other words, O’Neill took one look at him as a player, decided, “you’re not for me,” and chased him out of the club.

But I’m a little bit confused by the logic here, because if Berkovic hated Celtic so much, and if he hated it at Celtic so much, why is he so angry at the guy who held the door open for him and kicked his backside through it?

There are people in the world who are just bitter and angry and hateful, and if Berkovic thinks he sounds rational, if he thinks he sounds like a good human being, if he thinks he sounds in any way like someone you would want to get to know, then I would suggest he is very, very wrong.

That is not to say I don’t understand him a little bit. That is not to say I don’t get where some of this comes from.

But I can’t sympathise with him, because what is obvious when you read the transcript of a rant like that is that, beneath all the noise, he is nothing but a coward.

He does appear to have been gutted at the time that he was being frozen out at the club. It seems O’Neill was prepared to let him leave for free, such was his rush to be rid of him, because Berkovic was one of the laziest and most arrogant players I think I have ever watched in a Celtic shirt.

Other than that debut, where he played reasonably well, I can barely remember him having a good game. He was a dreadful waste of money, but he also made sure that he got as much out of Celtic as he could.

He actually said that back in 2001, after O’Neill had basically sent him to the reserves. He said there was no hope for him at the club, but that he was not prepared to leave and forfeit the money Celtic owed him.

A guy more focused on his money than on improving his game. That said it all. That told you everything you needed to know about the player.

But here’s what is really behind Berkovic’s incessant hatred of Celtic. He will never admit that he would have stayed at Celtic had O’Neill given him game time, because he now preaches to a choir that doesn’t want anything to do with this club, and doesn’t want anything to do with anyone who ever had anything to do with this club.

The fact that he ranted about Palestinian flags in the stands at Celtic Park, again, and not for the first time, is the giveaway.

Of course he wanted us to lose the title. Berkovic is a hardline Israeli nationalist, and his hatred for Celtic now has to be greater than even that of his audience, because otherwise how can they take him seriously when he once played here?

So of course, Berkovic has to claim he wanted out after one game. Otherwise, he might give the impression that life at Celtic was not that bad, that the club was not that bad, that the fans were not that bad.

Sure, the relationship had soured by the end, and I am sure he has never loved Martin O’Neill, but this is playing to the gallery a little bit too much.

“I wanted out after one game.”

What is that? Who can take that seriously?

There is no doubt that he hates Celtic now, but that is because he is a hardcore supporter of a state whose actions a large section of our fan base has no difficulty condemning. He hates us, and it is fair to say that many of us have no time for him either.

But before he accuses us of antisemitism, or anything else, let me make something very clear: I disliked him long before I knew anything about his politics. I disliked him because, like I said, he was a waste of space in a Celtic shirt.

Celtic fans will tolerate a lot of things, but a non-trier is a different matter entirely. Someone who gives up, someone who is lazy and weak and cowardly in the game, is not going to fit in at Celtic. He is never going to be taken to by the fans.

But there is a defining characteristic of Celtic fans which Berkovic seems to be the opposite of, and it is this: we don’t spend any of our time thinking about Eyal Berkovic.

I can’t remember the last time I thought about him, except that it was probably the last time Berkovic was ranting and raving and pouring his hatred onto Celtic. But I do know that Eyal Berkovic thinks about Celtic all the time.

He may as well never have left, because he is still trapped in the building somewhere. Celtic is still occupying space rent-free in his head, and just when I thought I couldn’t be happier about our title win, knowing that it triggered him into an emotionally incoherent rant like that just makes it all the sweeter.

But I started this article talking about the media, and so that is how I am going to finish it.

Not even on Berkovic himself, who is not even an afterthought on my most troubled day, but on the decision to report the deranged comments of someone who hates this club and expresses that quite freely.

That is a new low for the hacks in this country.

“Celtic hater hates Celtic.”

That should be the headline, because that is the whole story. It is tragic that they have to stoop to this level. It is atrocious that they are publishing the ravings of a man still raging about a club he left more than two decades ago.

But perhaps that is where we are now.

Celtic win the title, and the media goes looking for bitterness.

They found Eyal Berkovic.

That tells you more about them than it does about us.

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