Which in itself is quite an achievement.
To take an already laughable media even further away from reality deserves a round of applause, a pat on the back and a large treble whisky to whoever is behind it.
As Shakespeare himself said;
“They must think we’re all fucking stupid ”
Anyway, it just adds to the feelgood factor around today.
For me, at least, as she’s popped over to Jersey for the weekend with her pals, and I’ve a weekend to myself.
I may venture into the city for a light refreshment for a couple of days, but there won’t be any trouble.
We at the Lennon CSc are far more organised than that, and one of ours will do all the fighting, saving the rest of us a fortune in fines.
Tom is also raising money for charity, and I’ll post a link at some point for anyone who wants to help out. ( Yes, you’re right. I’ve lost the original one. )
Going to watch a fight puts me in mind of my own career as a youngster. I remember the ring being miles away from the dressing room.
Good job I didn’t have to walk back.
Before we have a laugh at the media, we’ll step back for a second and put out an appeal to find the man who has stolen a laptop from the offices of the Glasgow Herald.
Neil Cameron is desperate to have it returned as someone has only gone and written something sensible and put his name to it.
GORDON STRACHAN needs players on Sunday used to dealing with the biggest occasion and who have the wherewithal emerge from desperate must-win situations with the right result.
Anything other than a win against Slovenia, these days a better team than us, will mean the manager either walks or is sacked. The World Cup dream has all-but gone already but a draw or defeat will see us become a laughing stock.
Strachan needs proper players with big personalities who can cope with such football matches.
Good job, then, he has six Celtic players in his squad for whom must-win games come every week and just happen to be full of confidence, having the season of their lives and at least this half dozen have recent and relative European experience.
Craig Gordon should be in goal, Kieran Tierney at left-back (if the best young Scottish player in years doesn’t start I’m becoming Norwegian), Scott Brown and Stuart Armstrong in central midfield, James Forrest on the right and Leigh Griffiths up front.
Add Charlie Mulgrew into that mix, a Celtic player up until last summer, and there are seven guys who have lived every day with pressure, in terms of professional football, and have time and again coped with these situations.
Then he followed it with this..possibly the single paragraph containing the most common sense ever written in the Scottish sports media-not much to compete with, but outstanding nevertheless..
The English Championship is bang-average. Celtic are not. There are few players down there who would get into Brendan Rodgers’s team. Don’t be fooled by the propaganda from south of the border.
Of course, its probably all part of a conspiracy to get all of our players injured before the semi final against “rangers “, but somehow, this time, I don’t think it is.
The upcoming internationals worry me, as there’s always the chance we could lose a key player, but the lads need to keep playing, and I’m running out of time to follow Scotland to a major tournament, so the risk is necessary.
Mind you, Strachan will no doubt see it differently, using his argument that players down south play against a higher calibre of players than they do up north.
They don’t actually beat any of them, but the experience of losing to better players stands them in good stead for Scotland games.
I admire Strachan, but he has a stubborn streak that sometimes blinds him to reality.
And the reality is that those diddies he is picking from lower English sides are fucking useless. Thats why they still play for lower English sides, despite the high level of exposure they get down there.
Well done to Neil Cameron for being the first to realise this.
It won;t do our players any harm to gain international experience either. With the home front largely taken care of, probably for the next few years at least, Celtic should raise their European ambitions a level, and at the very least try to get back to where Martin O’Neill and latterly Strachan took us.
Remember when Bayern Munich took a lap of honour when they got a draw at Celtic Park ?
The hoops were formidable at home, and in those days we would look at the draw and see what our best chance of an away point was to secure qualification from the groups.
It takes a while to build a side capable of competing at that level, and we may even face disappointment again next year, but if the top players play together as often as they can against different styles, then we’ve a better chance.
What does Mikael Lustig think ?
“The main goal will be to feel like we are improving our games in Europe.
“We’d like to be able to go away from home to Germany or Italy and play good football and try to grab more points than we did this year.
“I hope that we can achieve that and become and even better team. It’s going to be hard to replicate what we’ve done domestically this year but obviously we’ll try.
“Not many teams have achieved what we are trying to achieve this season. We’ve won the League Cup already and the League is in the bag and we hope we can get the Scottish Cup. It would be massive for us but first our focus will be on that semi-final.”
Along with Scott Brown, Lustig is our most experienced player, and despite criticism, he will be part of the backbone of the side as Rodgers attempts to achieve his own legendary status at Celtic.
There’s a lot to look forward to…
Now, about the media and their complete collapse this morning..
As you may know, “rangers ” released their interim accounts yesterday. Unaudited accounts, which , well, you try to work it out.
I’m lost..
RANGERS International Football Club PLC unaudited trading results for the six months to 31 December 2016.
The results for the six month period have mainly been driven by the Club’s return to the SPFL Premiership. Overall it is an encouraging financial performance that reflects the move to a more normalized trading environment as the numerous event risks that have bedeviled the Club’s operations over the last few years have been brought under control.
Resolution of the ongoing dispute with Sports Direct is the only significant issue that still adversely affects the trading performance. Executive management is increasingly able to focus its attention on the Club’s core footballing activities.
Revenue for the period was £16.3m, an overall increase of £5.3m over the comparative period.This was a result of three main factors:-
- enhanced attendance; increasing ticketing and hospitality revenue by £3.5m;
- the return to the SPFL Premiership this season; generating a £0.8m increase in the central funds received by the Club;
- a much improved performance in sponsorship and commercial revenues; aided by being back in the top league.
Operating expenses, excluding amortisation of players’ registrations, increased by £4.1m compared to the comparative period. This increase is driven by three main factors:-
- a substantial increase in the player pool costs, to allow the team to be competitive in the Premiership;
- an increase in matchday costs, such as policing and stewarding, reflecting the higher profile of this season’s matches;
- an increase to overheads in the business as the Board continues to re-establish best practices throughout the Club.
The net impact of these factors is that the operating result improved, from a loss of £0.5m in the comparative period, to a profit of £0.3m. The Club is well on its way to achieving a sustainable business model while continuing to invest in infrastructure and the player squad.
Reliance is still placed on shareholders to fund the shortfall that is required during the current rebuilding phase.
Whilst additional funds are available if required by the Club, no further funding from investors is anticipated in the balance of this financial year to June 2017 due to the team’s football performance and progression to the William Hill Scottish Cup semi-finals.
Sounds fine, until you realise these figures ( unaudited ) include all the season book money…as we see in the highly complex report..
Well, perhaps not so complex, as expalined by Arsene Parcelie with a simple image, and a message to the media..
His Kerrydale Street colleague Cartuja went even further to explain the spin, which we’ll come to shortly..
From the two headlines in Cartuja’s pic, bith genuine, you’d think their troubles were over and the sun was shining again..
Yet… Sky sports Scotland reckon ( and so do I ) that these figures..
actually constitute a loss..
RANGERS FINANCIAL RESULTS £16.3m revenue for 6 months to December 2016. Increase of £5.3m in revenue from 2015. Loss of £238,000 for period.
Thats a loss in a period that includes season book money.
Dave King, the man who says he owns “rangers “, you can’t be sure of anything he says-has been in town, and that might explain the dearth of transparent reportage on the subject.
Well, when i say “might “..
So, how did the media finally destroy whats left of their credibility ?
Stephen Halliday, in the Scotsman.
Rangers have reported a profit of just under £300,000 from their return to the top flight of Scottish football. Interim accounts for the six-month period to the end of December 2016 show revenue of £16.3 million, an increase of more than £5m on the same period 12 months previously. The Ibrox club have described the unaudited trading results, released this morning, as “an encouraging financial performance”.
Gary Ralston, Daily Record
Rangers chairman Dave King has taken the club into profit for the first time since he seized control two years ago.
The Light Blues have released their unaudited trading results for the six months to December 31 and it shows a profit of £300,000 on increased revenue of £16.3million.
That’s an improvement on losses of £500,000 from an £11m turnover for the same period 12 months previously.
Robert Collins , The Sun
RANGERS have announced an operating profit of £300,000 for the six months leading up to December 31 last year in their unaudited accounts.
The Ibrox club revealed a revenue increase of £5.3million as well as an higher expenses of £4.1million during the same time period.
And, of course, Chris Jack and Martin Williams of the Ibrox Evening Times
RANGERS have posted an pre-tax loss of £278,000 for the six months to December 31, 2016.
The unaudited accounts for Rangers International Football Club plc show an improvement on the £333,000 deficit of the previous year.
The club said it did not need extra investment to see them through to the end of the season due to their on-field performance.
The Evening times claiming its a loss…
Well, to be fair, they must have read back what they wrote earlier and realised they’d been sold a pup…
Rangers post £300,000 profit in half-year Ibrox accounts
So most outlets claim a profit, and the Evening Times, to cover the waterfront, claims its a loss and a profit.
That level of bullshit can only confirm they’ve had a chat with James Traynor, and /or Dave King.
The Sun has a feature which contains a full question and answer session with the elusive fraudster, which has to be the most pointless piece ever produced.
They’d have been as well giving him the horoscopes page to edit, as the content of both will contain similar levels of veracity.
The reason for all this ?
Well, there are two.
UEFA licences are up for grabs, and the unaudited accounts fulfill the first stage of the Ibrox application. At this point in the proceedings , its all about trust.
Surely the SFA know that the current custodians at Ibrox cannot be trusted to tell the truth about finances ?
And secondly, there are season books to sell, so we have the annual bullshit from King about how he’s going to make things better, like he does year after year.
The danger for the SMSM is that one day, and it cannot be too far away, even the gullibillies are going to call them out.
Then they are truly up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
It’s Friday again, and that means we have to pick someone who is going to be this weeks Etims
Knob of the Week
And its getting harder and harder, with so much competition out there.
So you know what, its a collective award this week.
To all of those sportswriters who sit at the Level 5 table, begging for scraps.
To all of those who have ignored the Offshore Game Report
To those who consider the Resolution 12 issue to be about Celtic and Rangers.
To those, in fact, who perpetuate the myth of the same club and the denial of what liquidation actually means.
To all of those who have served the Scottish game in a way that could yet destroy it.
You are this weeks Etims Collective
Knob of the Week
Picture puzzle yesterday, the one which featured a youthful Ally McCoist 
was solved by..
Brewsters Mullyins – the remake.
Failed football manager given a warchest by a South African Billionaire and told to make a c**t of it
Today, have a look at this..
By the way, I bumped into a big Rangers fan yesterday, and after the usual “who do you support now you’re clubs dead ” opener, he pointed to his tattoos, which featured the usual array of King Billy, the queen ( two different people, there’s a comma in there ) and 1872.
I asked him if they were the ones that washed off… he replied…
“I don’t know ”
