Remember our philosophy: EK-ing out a win is not good enough

"We did it by playing football; pure, beautiful, inventive football. There was not a negative thought in our heads."

Paul McStay: Beautiful football exponent

Firstly, we should get our priorities right. This is an example of tautology. Tautology is, as every first-year philosophy undergraduate knows, effectively, saying one thing that becomes obsolete because it is a condition without which the fact could not exist.

“Three different people said so”. Tautology. Could three of the same person have said so?

“Begging the question” is different. The popular meaning of begging the question is to make it obvious that a question should be asked.

“Stokes chose to join a championship side when there were Premiership clubs interested, which begs the question: does he have any ambition?”

This would prompt apoplexy in any common-or-garden philosophy academic. Amid Glasgow Uni's cloistered halls, it wouldn't even warrant a “Byres-Road-Level” put-down (intended to denote that any couple of arseholes trying to sound clever by audibly debating in Kelvinside accents could come up with such reasoning).

From this, we can deduce that few Scottish football journalists are philosophy graduates.

“Celtic should have beaten East Kilbride more comfortably because a Scottish Premiership side should be considerably better than a Lowland League team” – this is “begging the question” in a way to attract criticism from Byers-Road-Level first-year philosophy undergraduate arseholes.

Fortunately, and it's one of our few current comforts, Celtic fans need not yet resort to metaphysics in order to have our club understood. We exist.

Sumus, we might say as if we hadn't had to use Google Translate to think of a grammatical way to say, “We are”, in a slapstick homage to cogito ergo sum. We think but, luckily, we also are. We do not have to ask judges to imagine our existence in ethereal terms involving butterflies in the stomach.

Great! We still exist!

And, first-things-first, we should praise East Kilbride, who also exist and have done for six years, for their performance against Celtic.

They are many years younger than us and, therefore, perhaps we might expect their youth to offer a telling advantage. A six-year-old may not have learned much about football but you would expect him or her to outlast your average centenarian.

But I am more generous than that. I think East Kilbride did rather well in their contribution to a match in which they looked like a relegation-battling Championship side again a promotion-chasing Hibs.

As a fan, afflicted with “Big Club Syndrome”, I think I must offer generosity in such a way as to appear gracious to the plucky club whose players and coaching staff indisputably performed admirably against my “big club”, which has all the hallmarks of one considering its pension and a smaller homestead, without so many stairs to climb, now that the kids have flown the coop.

And I do respect and admire East Kilbride and their personnel. Their (presumably sore) heads will be held high this week. They'll tell their kids and grandkids about the time they held their own against Celtic, who beat them with two scrambled goals, one of which could have been disallowed for handball, had the fates been on their side.

And yet I am caught between superlatives, comparatives and expletives.

Celtic are – we suspect and hope – the best team in Scotland.
Celtic were, marginally better than East Kilbride.
Celtic now consistently provoke the club's most passionate followers to turning the air a colour that they would normally prefer not to think about.

Celtic should be disappointed because we should have done better – tautology.

And yet when Leigh Griffiths was asked if he should be disappointed, despite the win, he protested. Let's be clear, Leigh is not one of our problem players. He is one of our must-haves.

And yet our best player of the season's comments surely reflect something of the philosophy at the club.

“It would have been hard if we’d lost today so it was a crucial victory but I was comfortable during the 90 minutes,” said the manager.

Is there a commitment to excellence at Celtic? If so, where is it manifest? Is there any ambition?

To this observer, a complacent group of players felt that they had to do “just enough” to overcome non-league opposition – a view supported by comments from players and management.

How many fans share that opinion?

“A club like no other,” said the branding – as if a slogan aping “mes que un club” would somehow suggest comparisons between Celtic and Barcelona. “Because Celtic” is, thankfully, now rarely mentioned.

It appears that the coaching and playing staff have no idea about what is expected of Celtic.

Is that the result of indoctrination by people with more “pragmatic” aims, instead pursuing projects?

What about the club's philosophy?--