Celtic Diary Monday June 13: It’s Going to Be A Long Week

I wasn’t wrong about the Knob Of The Week Award.

They’re fighting on the beaches to get their hands on it this week already.

We’ve had perennial challenger Gordon Smith and his revelations yesterday, and newcomer Joey Barton looking to secure his first award in Scotland today. Well, technically yesterday as well, but it hits the news stands today.

The poor sod, though its hard to feel any sympathy for him, is being played like a fiddle by the Level 5 guys. See how easy it is to include the word “fiddle ” in a sentence when you talk about the south side johnnies ?

Come to think of it, you could say the same about the word “sentence “, though thats obviously for the courts to decide.

Barton is the new deflection tool for the PR company which saturates the morally flexible Scottish media with stories designed entirely to make the hordes feel good about themselves, by simply not reporting on the ongoing crises at the malfunctioning Ibrox club. At least until they’ve shifted enough season books to pay the annula bonuses, unless of course you happen to be Mark Warburton, when allegedly you are told there wasn’t a bounus after all and we were just kidding.

Having already “dissed ” Scott Brown , Celtic’s captain, the journeyman midfielder moved on to manager Brendan Rodgers, and helped the former Liverpool boss with his first team talk for the first league meeting of the two clubs..oh, and incidentally, whats the odds Celtic will travel across town for the first game, as there is little more than a vague optimism that the “rangers ” will finish in the top six, and guarantee a fourth meeting ?

Yeah, they haven’t thought of that over at Sky Tv have they, although the referees have almost certainly been made aware of their duties..

Anyway, back to Barton, fast becoming the Anthony Beaumont Dark of Scottish football -without the wit and humour

The former Conservative MP, Sir Anthony Beaumont-Dark, who has died aged 73, was universally known in political circles as the “king of the rentaquote”. Typical of his ability to produce pithy – and populist – quotes was his instant undermining of Sir Anthony Meyer, the Tory backbencher who challenged Margaret Thatcher for the party leadership in 1989. The conventional wisdom was that Meyer was Michael Heseltine’s “stalking horse”; Beaumont-Dark redubbed him a “stalking donkey”.  

Barton told the Daily Record, and anyone else within earshot what he thought of Rogers…

“ Celtic are a great club and have had it their own way while Rangers have been out of the top flight. You expect Celtic to improve. They have brought Brendan Rodgers in and that’s a huge outlay for them.

“They will be expected to kick on.

“The only thing you have to quantify that with, and I’m not trying to stir the pot, is Brendan has never won a trophy.

“He’s never won anything, so he is going to have to do stuff there that he hasn’t done before.”

Barton too, may find he has to do something he has never done before, which is to choose his words carefully. The more he goes on, the more the expectations of the dark side will rise, and the higher they rise, the further they will have to fall. And they’ll blame him….

“Brendan is a great manager, he is a great appointment and is good for Scottish football, but second for Celtic next year is nothing.

“If Celtic finish second next year that is a bad season for them.

“If Rangers go into the league and finish second, not that we want to, that will be seen as progress.

No, it will be seen as a result of a succession of honest mistakes leading to an honest miracle. 

They won’t finish second. They are nowhere near the level of consistency required, but its one way of deflecting from that. As the season goes on, the rhetoric will adapt, until finishing with

“Relegation allows us to take stock and rebuild, as we were not ready for the hatred and desire of other teams, referees and the crowds to be unleashed upon us ” 

Bartons script continued…

“So the pressure is all on Celtic. Every bit of it.

“They have to win the league, they have to get to the group stages of the Champions League.

“I’m not going there to play second fiddle to anyone though.”

There’s that word again. Fiddle. 

And I suppose a Second Fiddle is about right, Ibrox fans having already been convinced they are the same club, are now being  sold the pup that is Joey Barton and whoever else they bring in.

Oh hang on, he hasn’t finished yet. In fact, its almost as thougb he’s forgotten something…

“Rangers have the most titles in world football and the club is going for its 55th title.” 

As the paper couldn’t find anyone at Celtic who could stop laughing long enough to formulate a measured response, they took adavtage of the recent good weather and headed down to Brighton… where Beram Kayal is having the time of his life, something quite difficult to achieve in most places on the English south coast. ( Let’s see if the Southampton lads are still reading this. And if they’ll still be reading it tomorrow.. )

Kayal countered…

“Scott absolutely loves the challenge. These are the things that make him strong.

“I saw it myself when I was there. He is the leader and he drives the team, the guy who is always there fighting for the team and his club.

“I spent almost five seasons with Scott and he is just what you want in your dressing room.

“Everyone knows with Rangers coming back they are going to make some statements and try to make Celtic angry players. I knew things like that would happen even before they reached the newspaper because it is expected.

“People were always going to talk about Broonie and Barton and it’s going to be a really great time in Scottish football hearing it all until the first Old Firm derby is played.

“Scott will be ready for that and preparing himself just now to beat Rangers, to beat Barton and to show his qualities and what a great player he is.

“Broonie has a lot of experience and has proved himself at every level he has played.

“He is the captain of Celtic and the captain of his country. He has played in the 
group stages and knockout stages of the Champions League and has won many trophies with Celtic.

“He doesn’t need to prove himself to anyone but he will probably still want to anyway.

“With the position he has in the club and his country he has nothing to prove. But things like that obviously do fire you up a little bit.

“It’s happened before and it will again this time I’m sure.”

Of course, they could have asked me for a response, which would have been along the lines of

Do you lot ever read the shite you write ? 

So, Barton has so far spoken about Brown, Rodgers and Celtic, and yet nothing on his own teammates, his own manager and “rangers “.

And they call us obsessed ?

Speaking of Level 5, here’s something from Twitter they will probably deny any links with…

“rangers supporters “-being ripped off ?

That almost never happens …

Danny Graham,

Steven Fletcher..

Can we get them ?

Feckin betcha..

Those of us who have paid attention to the way Celtic do business during the transfer window will be well aware that most signings come out of nowhere, and usually if a deal is touted in the papers, it means it will not happen.

The two strikers mentioned above are both available for nothing, although technically we’ll have to pay them somnething, quite probably every month, and thats too much of an outlay for these pair.

Neither of them are prolific goalscorers, neither of them have ever been prolific goalscorers, and therefore neither of them should be near Celtic Park.

We’ve had enough of these so called support strikers who bring others into the game. A strikers job is to score goals. If he scores enough of them, the team wins matches.

Thats kind of how it works.

Genuinely, the only rumour we have heard is the Zlatan story.  Oh, and Steven Gerrard.

Neither of whom have committed themselves to anything next season, except Gerrard, who made his committment before he knew Rodgers was coming to Celtic.

As for who may be leaving, the only story anywhere with any kind of substance is the one surrounding emilio Izaguirre, who is wanted by his old club… as their manager explains;

“Emilio has indicated to us he would be willing to sign for Motagua. He has the blood of this club in his veins,” said Caballero. “He is ready to play for us for the new season and it would obviously be an incredible signing. We’d love to see Emilio return to his home and we hope we can move this forward soon,” he added.  

With the intensly dull, if you don’t count the fighting, hastily arranged by the supporters to liven things up a bit, Euro 2016 under way, BBC Northern Ireland have tried to inject a much needed dose of humour into the event, with this video to help any confused supporter as to the differences between the two Irish representatives, itslef a clever ploy ans clearly something the Scots didn’t consider when demanding their referendum. Not to nicola-next time try to get a couple of provinces in, and a couple out.

That way you should see a four fold increase in the chances of me having someone to support in the finals of a  major tournament

If that doesn’t work, here’s a link

Irish football explained

Gary Lineker , the gormless face and monotine voice of BBC football coverage offered his own insightful thoughts on the Euros. to be shot down by former Celtic player, manager and model Neil Lennon;

(Any excuse, honestly )

Gary Lineker: “Expanding the tournament has helped teams like Northern Ireland qualify.”

Neil Lennon: “We finished top of our group.”   

As with Sky’s bloated coberage of English football, the expansion of the euros has meant a lowering of quality, and it renders the qualifiers nothing more than a turgid series of friendlies.

They’ll realise that soon enough when they check the viewing figures, as countless pub landlords continue to wonder why they bothered paying exorbitant fees to allow half a dozen people to nurse their pints through the much anticipated Isle Of Man -Vatican City State game.

Especially when he could have just wheeled the karaoke machine in instead.

On a brighter note, the Lennon CSC, who feel the boredom more than most are having a meeting to discuss when to have our next meeting tonight at the usual place.

Which gives me something to look forward to.

Yesterdays caption compettion was won again in a marvellous satirical spirit by the very first poster…