More work for Media House after Rangers terrorist chants

Democratic Unionist politicians will no doubt have been dismayed watching television footage of Hearts v Rangers.

Not because, in the absence of Kevin Thomson, Hearts coursed through the visitors’ midfield like a dose of salts – no, this will particularly interest Jimmy Spratt and Gregory Campbell.

As both have been quick to express offence at the conduct of Celtic supporters, they will presumably be contacting Rangers and the SPL to complain about the pro-terrorist singing from the visiting supporters.

The old dirge, A Father’s Advice, rang from the stands. Admittedly, like most Rangers songs, it is primarily offensive to the art of song-writing. Rarely can one group of people have embraced such a repertoire of a-poetical drivel as an expression of their culture.

However, the song is an exhortation to join the YCV, a sectarian paramilitary youth organisation, re-formed by Loyalist killer Gusty Spence as a youth wing of the murderous UVF.

We await the condemnation of this celebration of terrorism from Northern Ireland’s elected representatives.





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Three key players who wrecked Celtic’s European dreams

Celtic fans have rightly sneered in recent times at the increasingly crude media management employed by David Murray and his Media House cronies, using second-rate Play-Doh hacks to deflect attention from the behaviour of Rangers fans.

Celtic have been much more subtle. Peter Lawell, for example, is a much more shrewd operator than Murray (and could teach him a thing or two about dignity). But that’s not to say that certain figures at Celtic have made less strenuous efforts to spin their way out of the public eye when the club’s failings have been concerned.

And chief victim of this is Gordon Strachan. Has Strachan made mistakes? Is he often too reluctant to make attacking changes? Could he sometimes be described as too much a coach and not enough of an old-fashioned manager? Undoubtedly.

Has he been a Chief Executive’s dream? You betcha!

Let’s be clear about one thing – Celtic, above the coaching level, did not plan for the last 16 of this season’s Champions League. The club calculated for a lucrative UEFA Cup run and championship-winning season.

They watched a pitiful Rangers side clump to a final in Manchester and said: “We’ll have some of that.”

How do we know this? Because Celtic’s unofficial channels that explain away policies before they have even become official told us so before a ball was kicked in anger. When the club was crying out for the left back and striker the fans expected, suddenly the focus turned to “cash in the bank”, and “financial consolidation” keeping us ahead of our domestic rivals for the foreseeable future. It was then that speculation turned to the benefits of a UEFA Cup run in comparison to one more round in the Champions League against a club we had little hope of beating. This does not happen by accident.

Well, when you aim for second best, you very often end up with nothing.

Now, however, the same “insiders” are telling us that, whatever else may be wrong at Celtic, lack of investment in the team isn’t one of them. “Net spend” is relatively high, we hear. The implication is clear – Peter Lawwell, Dermot Demond and John Reid aren’t to blame; Gordon Strachan is.

It is a shoddy way to treat a manager who has continually delivered success under extreme financial constraints and sung the praises of his “friends” at the club in the process.

Did Strachan, who maintains the most detailed database of players, say he didn’t want another left-back, additional top quality central defender and proven goalscorer? If he did, he should come out and say so. If instead he was forced to accept that sufficient funds would be unavailable, those who made that decision should be held accountable.

Strachan still has and always will have fans who compare him unfavourably to Martin O’Neill. How would he have reacted to this?

I suspect that he would have publicly embarrassed the officials who were failing to support him. I doubt that he would have quietly acquiesced while players like Du Wei were foisted upon him to “appeal to the Chinese market”. I wonder if he would have sat back while players like Marc Crosas (admittedly a good addition) were delivered in deals that were conducted in the board room without the coaching staff being asked for an opinion.

You can be certain that O’Neill would have raised the roof if he suspected that private briefings were being issued to have the blame laid entirely at his door while those who frustrated his attempts to improve the squad were exonerated.

I suspect that this will be Gordon Strachan’s last season at Celtic, though I hope I am wrong. If that is the plan, then some figures at Celtic may think they have little to lose in feeding him to the piranhas to enable them to hide.

It is true that some fans judge ambition only on the size of the transfer fee paid for “wow signings”. It also appears that, whatever the financial climate, some of the recent calls for prudence would have been more appropriate to the last Chancellor of the Exchequer than the former Home Secretary. There is a middle ground – sign better players than you have and build the squad you need.

Notably, Celtic’s own website has only two news items on the exit from Europe. The names Reid, Lawwell and Desmond are not mentioned. They should not, however, believe that underhand tactics will fool all of the people all of the time.






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Amateurs embarrass fans

We can say all we like about Celtic’s “mystifying” inability to win away from home – even laugh about it from time to time.

But there is no excuse for losing to a team that was easier to break down than St Mirren at the weekend. If Georgios Samaras is unfit, then his place should have been taken by Cillian Sheridan (himself unimpressive in the time he was on).

What is the story with Samaras in Champions League games?

The man with the lowest pulse rate in the SPL has been conspicuously bad in his European ventures for Celtic, panicking into making no decision, rather even than the wrong one in front of goal.

And ridiculous decision-making is one of the major criticisms to be levelled at Celtic especially away from home. How many times did Andreas Hinkel play the ball backwards rather than across the field? How many times did Celtic players pass to Aalborg players rather than find their own men?

Aalborg are the worst side Celtic have ever faced in the Champions League group stages, yet still the Danes managed to take four points.

Gordon Strachan could do worse than offer his own explanations. I didn’t see what happened off the field preceding Shaun Maloney’s arrival, one minute before the end of ordinary time. I’m quite glad as, for several minutes prior to that, I had been predicting that Gary Pendrey would be drawing diagrams three minutes before the end.

It’s too easy to name names of players who badly let Celtic down – Scott McDonald, for example – but that would be to exonerate the rest. Boruc, Wilson, Brown and Robson can perhaps be given pass marks.

Territorial dominance and creating chances mean nothing if you throw away chances and bring poor teams into games with absurd passing and players who look like they should be in their beds. If you do you that you deserve to lose.





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