This is the reason why I love this job. I spend most of my day looking at all news regarding Celtic and try to bring you something you might not otherwise see in the mainstream media.
Celtic podcasts and your, shall we call them, mainstream media podcasts are a great source of information that people would not otherwise hear or read about the club and it seems, so far, very popular with visitors to my site.
But what is also great about this job is that you can look at the same news from a totally different perspective and that is something James Forrest over at The Celtic Blog is especially brilliant at.
Forrest takes the same information and reports on it and defends the club like a pitbull terrier defending it’s backyard from unwanted intruders.
But what he also does is expertly take the club apart, if and when, it is needed.
It’s an art. And Forrest went all Van Gogh on two pieces I had previously reported on today.
The first was Hugh Keevins attack on the club by claiming Ange Postecoglou had a disastrous weekend because of ‘bad decision’ making. Forrest pulled no punches at that remark as he said, “This is all the start of the new narrative of course; Giakoumakis is the fresh media whipping boy.
“But of course, Keevins main target was the manager, and if you want an example of his bitterness this is what he had to say about the penalty.
“An absolute gift of a penalty to Celtic. It was a penalty, but what a gift to a team who had done nothing to win the match on their own.”
“Excuse me? Done nothing to win the match on their own?
“Except for the most shots at goal, the most shots on target and 85% possession?
“What planet does this clown live on? His dislike of our club really runs deep when he can write garbage like that.”
The second was about Alex Rae, the former Rangers player Celtic fans love to hate.
Rae had a go at Celtic striker Kyogo Furuhashi for his reaction to Obileye’s slap. Rae labelled Kyogo embarrassing but Forrest had his own brilliant say on that opinion, “Rae wanted Kyogo up before the compliance officer for making a meal out of the incident for which Livingston had a player sent off and our penalty awarded.
“Listening to him was like listening to one of those Qanon conspiracy theorists.
“I understood all the words that came out of his mouth but I couldn’t imagine how any sane person could have put them into that order, or thought that there was a way to make them sound logical or even just connected to reality.
“He thinks our player’s conduct was “embarrassing.” I think his continued presence in the media is truly embarrassing.
“I think some of those who are connected to our club jumping onto an arch-enemy’s bandwagon is embarrassing. I think that there are too many people in the media like Rae, ex-Ibrox employees forever being asked to comment on Celtic and that would be embarrassing except that the press gives it legitimacy instead.”
And this is why I love this job. Same story but absolutely different, and devastating, opinion.