It seems that with bad performances comes bad news.
And when bad news hits alongside bad results, rumour and conjecture can cause panic not only amongst the fans, but have the press smelling blood from a mile off.
Take The Athletic’s apparent big story today. Kieran Devlin cited an unnamed “source” and ran a story claiming Ange Postecoglou and the scouting team did not sign James McCarthy, or something along those lines.
Celtic writers jumped on it and claimed it as fact.
Bang. Rumour panic number one.
And here is the second on.
Frank McAvennie taking to Football Insider to make an issue out of a story that has been done to death since Ange Postecoglou signed for Celtic and it is a rumour Ange himself put to bed as quoted by 67 Hail Hail, “We’ll start working on the structure off the field in terms of our staffing and how we do things, which is good.
“I want to build something that’s going to be a sustainable success.
“It’s going to take a little time but we’re chipping away at it.”
But McAvennie ignored that and after a defeat at the hands of Livingston, rather than turn to the obvious of a rebuild, injuries etc….(and the fact the team were just plain rotten), the former Celtic man rips into the club using the same tired and lazy argument. The backroom team.
McAvennie said, “I don’t care what anyone says, this is the big problem,”
“Postecoglou still doesn’t have his own team in. He has to have that there.
“I said he needed his own guys all summer. I can’t believe that, as a manager, surely he must have people he wants to bring in.
“I really don’t get it. I don’t think Strachan was his pick, what’s going on? It’s a joke.
“All this mad behind the scenes stuff is not helping anything on or off the pitch.”
No Frank. That’s not the big problem. Every Hoops fan can see the big problem is not the backroom team and you know why?
Not one person questioned it when the team was hammering away 6-0 wins earlier in the season with “Angeball”. So why question it now?
To sew division.
The Celtic fans are not stupid. But can the same be said for pundits?