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celticnoise · 3 years
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Neil Lennon has had very little support from the Scottish media in any of his roles in Scottish football including his time at Hibs.
In fact, the relentlessness of the attacks on him is frankly poor and downright disrespectful and they are continuing to undermine the Celtic manager.
We’ve had the mantra of “he brings it on himself” foisted upon us from day dot which is bizarre and in the main, unfounded.
The slating of his ability as a manager has, of late, been ferocious yet he’s won 5 League Titles, 2 Scottish Cups and a League Cup to secure the Treble Treble.
He stepped in when Brendan Rodgers abandoned and secured the feat of three domestic trebles on the trot. He is now 90 minutes from a fourth treble.
He’s suffered tremendous abuse from several outlets and has also been physically assaulted whilst carrying out his job.
He’s done so under immense added pressure.
The media never gives the guy a bye.
Celtic, this season has been wayward and he’s yet to find his settled eleven. We’ve had problems with the virus, including the Bolingoli incident and with players contracting or having to self-isolate. It’s been far from ideal and I agree that Thursday’s result was shambles.
There’s no excusing the manager, or the players for that matter, and I was as disappointed as everyone but the gnashing of teeth and vitriol from our own fans has been over the top.
There is a section of our fans are buying into all this crisis talk and are giving him it tight. I fully understand the frustrations given the importance of this season, who wouldn’t?
Yet trophy less Gerrard has been lauded since his arrival two and a half years ago. Gerrard now deserves credit as frankly his team are a polar opposite from when he took over. He’s been given massive financial support by his board, but the Blue Room is still bare.
There were signs in yesterday’s win over Motherwell that this group of players still possess tremendous ability but the media are portraying it as papering over the cracks.
Celtic has lost seven points this season while Rangers have dropped four so it’s relatively marginal.
We’re behind in games due to the Scottish Government’s decision to punish the club for Bolingoli’s stupidity. We need a little perspective on this. I genuinely believe the best is yet to come but Christ we need to start doing it.
People are making claims about Celtic’s fitness and have accused Lennon of having a laissez-faire approach to it but he’s dropped Griffiths due to this.
Lennon continually protects his players from criticism and some would suggest that it’s to his own detriment. Lennon was part of a Celtic team that was renowned for their fitness so are we to believe that as a manager he’s blatantly disregarded this mantra?
What is this based on? Internet hearsay, bullshit rumours topped with a sprinkle of conjecture. Motherwell had a spell of about 20 minutes which caused us some problems but Celtic upped the ante after their goal – unfit teams don’t do that.
I read the weekend’s The CelticBlog’s piece by Tony Begley and I have to take issue with the opening gambit stating that some of our fans see him as some sort of Provisional IRA icon. Lennon is not bedecked in Beret, Commando Jacket and AK47.
I literally don’t know fellow Hoops fans who portray Neil in such a light.
This is the preserve of fans of other clubs.
Lennon distances himself from this kind of thing. And frankly the line on “cerebrally challenged” and “faith through and through” is just daft.
The CelticBlog is an open forum for writers like Tony and I. I’ve been here since the inception of the blog but have become somewhat lapsed. James, to his credit gives us free reign unless anything we write is defamatory or breaches copyright – that’s what editors do.
Tony is entitled to his opinion but to demean your fellow fans publicly does not sit right with me. Simply because they may have blind faith to Celtic, its players and manager doesn’t mean they are fair game, and to bring the IRA into it is wrong on so many levels. If that how Tony sees it, then fine. As a Celtic fan I have the right to reply. It was extremely patronising.
The suggestion that Lennon will not have a “Mowbray style ending” is inexplicable – he’s actually won something. Mowbray offered very little to the club and had to go.
Typically, Neil’s detractors use his time at Hibs to point out his failings, while conveniently forgetting that he won them the Championship meaning promotion to the top flight then took them into Europe the following year. This would not suggest disharmony, surely?
Tony also points to rumours at Hibs and Bolton about his man-management.
Whispers of player fallouts arose but it seemed to me many of their egos got in the way.
The stark reality was that Lennon took players to task on poor performance and they didn’t like being shouted at. Yet, Sir Alex Ferguson is held in high esteem for his hair-dryer treatment? Kamberi was said to be the player at Hibs who took issue, but he illustrated his loyalty when he went to Ibrox on loan – where is he now? A bad apple perhaps?
Lennon was suspended but somehow it ended up with Leanne Dempster doing a huge climb down. Club secretaries ought to know not to interfere with dressing room matters.
I’ll be honest, I am unsure of where I sit with the current manager.
I’m not here to cheerlead on his behalf especially after Sparta. What he needs to do is get the team to the levels we know and recognise. We’re giving away meaningless fouls which invites pressure and the defence is at sixes and sevens. Barkas has come under intense scrutiny and rightly so but has yet to play in front of the same back three/four.
That tells a story, and it makes a big difference.
On a positive note, Rogic is in fantastic form, Brown had a great game and Elyounoussi scored a hat-trick. Brown looked like a player hungry to save his manager’s skin. But sometimes there is no pleasing some of our fans.
Some still want Lennon gone and I get it. But even if you do, treat the man with the respect he deserves. He’s led Celtic to unbridled success and has been at the end of some shocking stuff and we should celebrate not denigrate his achievements.
Leave the public sniping to the SMSM, it’s something they excel at.
Gavin McCann is a long time CelticBlog contributor, and was one of the editors of On Fields Of Green. 
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celticnoise · 4 years
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There’s nothing the Scottish press does better prior to our European games than talking up the opposition.
In this case they didn’t even wait for that to be confirmed, as The Record, over three consecutive days, promoted the views of people inside Swedish club Djurgarden, who were one of the two clubs we could have faced in the Second Round of the Champions League.
First they went with the club chairman, who snarked at UEFA about the home tie given to Celtic.
It’s a conspiracy theory, but the Scottish media has never had a problem promoting those before and they weren’t going to stop here.
They then spent two further days gleefully reporting that one of their players, talisman dward Tiger Chilufya, predicted, boldly, that they would “maul us”.
Yeah.
It’s funny, because I don’t remember ever reading this kind of thing prior to a Sevco game.
Well, tonight the papers here aren’t the only ones who look ridiculous as the presumption behind that particular piece of self-promotion ended in ignominy and disaster for the Swedes as Ferencvaros of Hungary knocked them out in a 2-0 home win.
I love it when stuff like this happens, and our press gets made to look utterly ridiculous. They do this with Sevco all the time, promoting the big talk of players who are going to turn our lights out and win everything only for the inevitable humiliation.
But this is the first time I remember them doing it before we were even confirmed to play a team, and that somehow makes it even more hilarious.
As to the player himself, I’m sure his manager was thrilled to read his comments, exposing the arrogance of the whole club in simply assuming they’d be coming to Celtic Park.
The Hungarians, on the other hand, have said nothing and focussed on the job.
Which tonight they got done.
Do not underestimate this mob. They have acted like professionals here and will bring that attitude with them next week.
The Scottish media could learn a thing or two from them.
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celticnoise · 4 years
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The media loves a controversial headline, and I understand that.
I also understand that they need to sensationalise everything, although I think they would serve their audiences better if they didn’t do that.
But the media is not allowed to just Make Stuff Up.
Today, every outlet is sensationalising the words of the Hibs chairman on whether he would support points deductions for breaches of health protocols set up by the leagues and overseen by the Scottish Government.
The agendas of some are obvious, but no paper has twisted his words more than The Herald, who have actually changed their own initial headline on the story, but still manage to make a wholly false suggestion.
Their suggestion, initially, was that he spoke in favour of deducting points from Celtic and Aberdeen.
Even their revised version has a headline built around that contention, and other papers have done similar. But the man could not have been clearer on what he was supporting, and what he was supporting is actually the opposite of sanctioning those two clubs.
“I would not be opposed to that,” he said of the imposition of sanctions, but he went out of his way to make it clear that he did not support it in this case.
“I think there has to be somewhere you draw the line,” he said, and then added, crucially, “It needs to be proposed before you could actually implement it, but I believe there would be support around the league for that. Everyone needs to chip in and behave.”
It needs to be proposed before you could actually implement it …
Which part of that was difficult for the headline writers to understand?
Which part of it was unclear for those pushing out the articles?
He would be in favour of regulations being written, but he is clear that such a thing could not be implemented without them.
It seems plain to me that he’s suggesting that even the new regulations are weak, and he’s voicing his opposition to retrospective punishment at the same time.
The media has chosen a very different interpretation.
His words are actually newsworthy, but they’ve twisted them in a way that brings them no credit whatsoever.
If I were on the Hibs media team I’d be furious about what looks like a blatant effort to turn the words of their chairman into an attack on two member clubs, with their logo stamped on it. It is outrageous and they ought not to be allowed to get away with it.
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celticnoise · 4 years
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Whoever the leak is from the SPFL meeting yesterday – and it could have been anybody to be honest – they have done the game a favour for once.
Not all leaks are bad.
Some of them put into the public domain facts which belong there.
Today’s is no exception.
Celtic’s statement yesterday was measured and calm, but it got the point across just the same.
The club wanted to make it clear that it stands four-square behind the SPFL executive, and it also wanted to send a message about the way our people perceive the last few weeks. The word “irrational” was the one that jumped out of the press release.
But the word “embarrassing” is more powerful still, and the news that Peter Lawwell used that word to describe the Sevco dossier in the SFPL conference call is music to my ears.
In public, in view of the media and the fans, Lawwell and the club have to be cautious and circumspect; in private, at those meetings where a frank exchange of views is not only common but almost a requirement of corporate governance, Celtic’s position on this was made abundantly clear.
And believe me, that will have swung votes.
We are the biggest and most professionally run club in the land. Our directors and officials act with the utmost probity in these situations. The other clubs in Scotland know that. They know we have high standards. When Lawwell talks, people at other clubs listen.
For those of a Sevco persuasion, hearing Lawwell use that word yesterday will have been a deeply chastening experience.
It may even have been a little bit mortifying.
They are just going to have to live with that, I’m afraid.
Because our CEO spoke the truth. It is impossible to even imagine Celtic acting in such a shabby manner as this.
We would never have gone after governing body board members half cocked, we would certainly never have waged a bitter campaign in the media promising all manner of revelations only to fall so completely flat.
Sevco humiliated itself yesterday; there is no other way to put it.
Their acolytes in the media and other assorted fools can try to spin it as some kind of victory as they like, but the simple facts are that they didn’t just lose but they lost in a landslide, and their defeat was not caused by any anti-Sevco sentiment out there; if they’d had a case they’d have made it and if they had done so properly they would have won their vote.
They lost because their club is a joker and its directors behave, at all times, like small men obsessed with petty grievances.
Yesterday all of Scottish football saw what they are, and Lawwell, as ever, had the appropriate word to describe them.
They are a laughing stock.
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celticnoise · 4 years
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A few days ago, our “national broadcaster” attempted an “impartial” show on the SPFL “crisis” and whether or not it needed an investigation.
Amongst those interviewed were Neil McCann and Kris Boyd, who’s “opinions” on the issues can be quite easily surmised.
Yesterday, the same show attempted to debate the same issue … and this time it gave airtime to Sevco’s pet MP the Democratic Unionist Party’s Gregory Campbell.
The interview drew so much criticism, from so many quarters, that the shamefacedly didn’t include it on the podcast.
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Whoever sanctioned it to begin with should be carpeted for it.
It sparked fury from many listeners and drew the ire of the ever-excellent Michael Stewart, who was on the show but later said on Twitter that he and others had been completely blindsided by it. I thought his choice of language was curious too; he talked about not supporting “de-platforming” people, which is a clear reference to Campbell’s social and political views which could only charitably be described as somewhat backward.
De-platforming, or no-platforming, is a term used by academic and media institutions in relation to denying airspace or a public profile to bigots. Examine Campbell’s previous statements and his voting record and it’s abundantly clear that’s what he is.
So why did the BBC see fit to invite this goon onto their show, and give legitimacy to him?
Because he has raised a parliamentary motion demanding an “independent inquiry” into the SPFL vote from two weeks ago.
Even as he was raising it – and it’s had no support outside of his pitiful co-sponsor, the Tory MP for Blackpool – the SPFL was announcing that it had asked the firm Deloitte to conduct and internal investigation, and they found no case to answer.
How many ways does this need to be spelled out? Clubs have come forward to deny that there was any kind of pressure. Dundee has repeatedly explained its position in relation to the vote. The SPFL has nothing to hide and no case to answer … Sevco’s alleged dossier of evidence has never been put in front of a single other party.
Now the Record is fixated on a call made to the chairman of Aberdeen, which doesn’t prove anything at all.
The call said that their vote hadn’t been properly counted. Aberdeen voted yes. So exactly what are the conspirators trying to allege here? That yes votes were suppressed as well? Aberdeen’s vote was eventually received on time, and went into the mix with the rest.
This is all just nonsense, and the BBC and other media outlets have allowed themselves to be led by the nose from Ibrox on this. It is embarrassing just how readily they’ve gone along with the narrative from that bonkers board over there.
But the BBC has a public service mandate.
Yet they have allowed bias to infuse every facet of this debate. They have allowed conspiracy theories to prosper over the true and simple facts.
80% plus of clubs support these measures.
It is a handful who are determined to wreck the general consensus.
Let us not forget that Sevco has demanded suspensions of key SPFL members, including the league body’s legal firm, and are questioning the SPFL chairman on alleged remarks that appeared in an ages old issue of Private Eye.
These are wild, paranoid fantasies, the kind that Sevco just love to indulge. It is shocking that the press is propping this up.
The tabloids have their excuse; their editorial suites are stocked full of those of a Sevco persuasion or who are over-dependent on that club and others for scraps of news. There are no real journalists in those rooms and it should be embarrassing to them that an Irishman with a press card – our own Phil Mac Giolla Bhain – does their job better than they do, and from the other side of the Irish Sea. The hacks here are a disgrace and always were.
But the BBC is supposed to be different.
It is supposed to be objective, but in Scotland it has proved over and over again that it gives equal weight to the “opinions” of both experts and lunatics, responsible citizens and paranoid fools, the intelligent and the idiots.
That is not balance. It distorts balance, and in this case they’ve put up a stone sectarian pushing an agenda and tried to present his as an unbiased view.
Shame on them for that, and especially when we have no choice but to pay for the license fee.
If that ever changes, I assure you that a lot of us will opt not to bother.
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celticnoise · 4 years
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It seems you can’t open the sports section of any newspaper, or tune into the sports headlines at night these days without some sensational thing hitting you right between the eyes.
And, none more so than when it involves Alfredo Morelos, who seems to have a bigger storm brewing around him than Ciara and Dennis combined.
Since our meeting with them on 29 December, one of the biggest controversies has been in relation to behaviour displayed at the game.
You would be right to assume Morelos’ and the now infamous gesture as he left the park was the focus of this conversation considering how utterly diabolical it was; so diabolical in fact that fellow Columbian’s publically spoke out against his behaviour, with one newspaper there saying it had “blighted his reputation.”
But in that case, of course, public assurances were given that the gesture is “commonly used throughout South America to indicate that something – in this case, the match – is finished” and therefore that discussion was folded up and nicely put to bed.
We then went through the Morelos car incident, spun to make it sound as bad as possible, and then through the truth … and now we’re back to the game again and the behaviour under scrutiny is not that of a grown-man with a bigger petted lip than Jocelyn Wildenstein, but of a 12 year old boy who was, this week, charged with racism.
Let’s get this straight right from the off; racism should be eradicated, wherever and whenever possible.
It is a stain on our society, something we could do without, and which the majority of people would happily point out at every opportunity.
Regardless of age, gender, race or religion, racism is taught and that’s where prevention and education has to begin, inside the homes where it is allowed to breed and grow, like a cancer.
But, for me, my outrage over this doesn’t come from the fact it’s been identified and is being tackled.
The outrage comes in the abhorrent way in which it’s been communicated and publicised and by none more so than Police Scotland themselves.
Following the charge, a lengthy 3 paragraph statement was put out into the public domain in which the superintendent himself spoke out directly.
Fast forward twenty-four hours and Police Scotland, the same organisation who saw fit to speak out against such criminality, published another public statement.
This time the focus was on the recent fire which was started at Wallacewell Primary School; if you don’t recall a fire was started deliberately in the outdoor classroom which left the acting head teacher “devastated” and the school itself a “devastated Wallacewell family.”
It also led to a JustGiving page being set up which as of today raised £1540 of a £1500 target.
This was no accident. This was arson which did irreversible damage and could have seriously injured people.
Police Scotland’s story on that was a 3-line sentence which read; Three 14-year-old boys have been charged for being allegedly involved in the recent fire at Wallacewell Primary School.
Spot the difference. 3 paragraphs vs 3 lines.
Three 14 year olds vs one 12-year-old.
Charged for being allegedly involved vs charged and reported.
Something about all this stinks. Something about the way the whole debate has ebbed and flowed around that game stinks.
Some suspect – and it’s hard to argue with them – that the length of the first statement, and the tone of it, were more to do with appeasing a certain football club and their baying mob of supporters, than with reporting facts. At the very least, the arrest was milked for maximum publicity … and when you consider the age of the suspect that’s just plain wrong.
Does a 12-year-old really deserve this sort of treatment?
What kind of society are we in where a child doesn’t even get the presumption of innocence?
Or does it not matter when it’s a Celtic fan?
The superintendent is right. Abuse in any form is completely unacceptable.
But as James Madison said, “liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power…”
CeeFCee is a female Celtic fan from Glasgow. She has chosen to write under a pseudonym. This is her first article for The CelticBlog.
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celticnoise · 4 years
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What are they taking over at Ibrox Noise? It’s a serious question.
If these people are on drugs I want to know what kind of drugs they are.
The delusional writers on that site were demanding that their club sue HMRC the other day, and asking for an apology from the SPFL and SFA for “wronging” the club. Today they reckon their Colombian ned is a £100 million player.
The article is a peach, it really is. They think a goal for Colombia has automatically added £10-£20 million onto the fee they’ll get for him, a price tag they were already estimating at double what Celtic got for Dembele. Yes, double. For a player yet to score in a Celtic game.
Read this paragraph for one thing.
“Here we now have Scotland’s best striker, an international who scores for his country, who scores for his club at the highest levels and is doing so prolifically and there are some mentalists out there who reckon Rangers could only get £15M at tops?”
I don’t reckon they’d get anywhere near £15 million. I doubt they would get an offer of £10 million, and as they aren’t listening to me perhaps they should listen to Morelos’ own agent, who is a better gauge of this stuff than anybody here can be.
“”This is a goal machine. He is a player worth following, (the clubs) who want a striker must come and follow him. He does not have a very high value. My advice is to take him before his name is on everyone’s lips.”
Read that again. Amidst the hype are the magic words; “he does not have a very high value.”
That is not some “mentalist” talking, this is the guy who represents the player, who knows the market, who knows what a footballer is worth.
He doesn’t believe he represents a £15 million player far less one worth the kind of figures these Peepul are slabbering.
I mean, just read this utter pish …
“Luis Suarez, in a time (2014) where transfer fees were nowhere near the mania they are now, went to Barca for £75M. He’d achieved little in his career at that point beyond some individual honours and a lot of potential – despite being Liverpool’s best player he actually had achieved even less than Morelos …”
Sweet Jesus. Do they actually believe this stuff?
I mean, actually? Honestly?
For the record, by the time Suarez moved to Barcelona he had won a Uruguayan national title, a Dutch title, a Dutch Cup and an English League Cup. That’s just the winner’s medals. His personal glory haul included Dutch footballer of the year, a Dutch Golden boot, a Ballon D’Or placing, two EPL teams of the year, the PFA Player of the Year, FWA Footballer of the year, the Premier League Golden Boot and, oh yes, a European Golden Shoe.
The comparison is barking. Moon howling. Lunatic ward material.
You get the impression reading this stuff that you are being trolled. Are they really this demented?
The answer is obvious; yes they are, and at times I am glad for it.
Because they are always good for a laugh.
At times though it’s so dumb it just ceases to be funny, and this is one of those times.
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celticnoise · 4 years
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I am sick having this debate every single year, the annual poppycock. It grates on me, because the club has made its position clear, the fans have made their positions clear and nobody can be under any illusions about how those at Celtic Park feel.
We are done apologising for this.
We are done being hounded over it.
The poppy is not a symbol of remembrance anymore.
It is nationalistic. It celebrates militarism and war. It “honours” not only men who died in the fight for western civilisation in two wars but pays tribute to those who fought in illegal conflicts and even those who murdered civilians.
This remembrance weekend, the Tory government is trying to change the law to limit the number of servicemen being charged by the courts for acts committed whilst in uniform and sanctioned by the state. This is what we’re being asked to buy into.
Many of those who claim they care at this time of year care about one thing only; climbing onto their own moral high ground and crowing mightily from atop it. So much attention is focussed on those of us who don’t conform that their agenda is laid out where everyone can see it.
This is what they care about now, the feeling of being superior in some way to other people.
Nobody does faux outrage and superiority like a Daily Record hack, and this weekend it was Michael Gannon taking on a subject much bigger than his comprehension and getting it wrong. His attack on the Green Brigade for their “protest” – they stayed outside during the minute’s silence and sang “you can stick your poppies up your arse” during the game – was typically bitter and lacking in the slightest intelligence.
His own high-horse is so low on the ground that it could qualify as a restricted view seat.
His snark about how The Green Brigade were probably “too tired from a week of fighting fascism” was supposed to be pointed; instead it was pitiful and repellent in equal measure.
First, he’s joking about this when Celtic fans were actually stabbed over there.
Maybe he can go in front of their families and explain the joke to them?
Secondly, whilst The Green Brigade was fighting fascism his newspaper was giving fascists coverage to attack them, with one journalist as good as egging the nutters with the knives on.
Thirdly, we get the joke, Gannon. The men who died in those wars fought against fascism too … and that’s alright as far as it goes, it was alright when the poppy was a symbol of just those men, but it has become much more nowadays and far more sinister.
It can’t have escaped his notice – maybe it has, he’s pretty thick – but the poppy has become a potent symbol of the far-right in Britain. This celebration of militarism is at the heart of our political troubles including Brexit.
Those who subscribe to a fascistic ideology in Britain are far more likely to be of the poppy wearing tribe than they are to be on our side of the fence.
And here’s the real kicker; one of the things those men allegedly being honoured fought and died for was freedom of speech and that includes the right to protest. You want to know what reeks of fascism? The way this so-called “remembrance” is being pushed on people.
The poppy is a political symbol.
When you force a political symbol on people – even brow-beating them into wearing it – that becomes fascism.
The irony is clearly lost on Gannon.
But then Gannon is just a bitter ignorant clown. He doesn’t have the slightest knowledge of, or interest in, political issues. The idea that there is a “big picture” would never dawn on this joker for one minute. Even explaining it to him after the fact feels like a waste of effort.
Yet I’ve done it anyway, because Gannon and his ilk shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this kind of thing. Celtic fans have wholly legitimate grievances with the enforced wearing of poppies and this highly politicised time of the year … and we’re done making nice with those who want to ram this stuff down our throats.
These people know where they can ram it.
The Green Brigade sang about it this weekend.
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celticnoise · 4 years
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At the time of writing this, there are still many thousands of Celtic fans over in Rome, celebrating last night’s sensational victory, including friends and family of mine. There were several incidents last night before and after the game which everyone who knows someone over there – and I imagine that’s almost all of us – read about with trepidation.
I do not regard Rome to be a hostile city, and neither do the folk I know who are over there. I never did.
But our media was determined to build this one up as if it was.
Amongst the most reckless acts was The Daily Record giving Mussolini’s daughter an article with which to promote the Celtic fans as a malign force. The press never, not for a minute, ever accepts one iota of responsibility when their coverage blows up into something.
You think a single hack at that paper regrets that they did that? I doubt it.
But Keith Jackson should have at least some, because his own column was by far the worst that the Scottish media produced in the aftermath of the game at Celtic Park. Not only was it an open invite for Italian fans to have a go, it sought to blame any trouble that did happen on The Green Brigade.
The scathing piece I wrote in response was one of the most widely read, shared, commented on and voted on of all the pieces I’ve done this season.
Our fans want Jackson banned over that piece, but we are not the only people who found it totally outrageous.
I will offer this criticism of them; those who agreed with the fury directed at The Record’s hack waited until trouble had actually flared and the dregs of Follow Follow were parroting Jackson’s pig ignorant, even dangerous, views before they pronounced the idea indefensible … and none of them mentioned him in their articles.
But it’s clear that they had him in mind.
They included the writers at Glasgow Live, which shares the same building – and the same offices – as The Record.
Their article “Celtic fans are not to blame for Lazio violence and fascism should always be opposed” was absolutely bang on, and no-one who read it could have been in the slightest doubt that Jackson was one of those who inspired its publication.
Graeme McGarry of The Herald Group published his piece in both of their titles, The Herald and The Evening Times, on a similar theme; entitled “Celtic fans can’t be blamed for lunatic Lazio fringe stabbing visiting supporters”, it too condemned those who have suggested that our fans “brought it on themselves” or were, in some way, culpable for what happened.
Jackson’s comments have zero support, even within his own profession.
His article was a hate-filled, spiteful piece of vindictive nonsense, designed to try and whip up anger against The Green Brigade. The idea that Celtic fans might turn on their own because fascist feelings might have been hurt was always risible. Jackson has way too high an opinion of his writing.
In truth, only a handful of people have publicly agreed with him on this and almost all of them are from the dregs of Sevconia’s forums. One Sevco supporting pub decided to promote the idea on Twitter and their “view” made a national newspaper.
“Notorious bigots bar thinks Celtic fans deserve stabbing.”
It’s hardly breaking news, is it?
I can’t understand why it got such attention.
Most of that bar’s patrons would happily see Celtic fans being beaten, drowned, hanged or shot. W
hy would they not favour stabbing too?
Their own mentality perfectly melds with the gutter rats of the far-right who were the target of our banners in the first place.
Some company you’re keeping there, Jackson. Some company.
If I were in his shoes, I’d be apologising.
But then, if I were in his shoes I’d never have written such a despicable article in the first place.
If he had any balls at all he’d arrange to meet with those who were attacked over there and put his theory to them, and see how they like it.
He lacks the backbone for such a thing.
In the absence of contrition or a robust defence of his repellent views, I would suggest a period of radio silence at the very least.
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celticnoise · 4 years
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Incredible. Absolutely incredible.
I am going to need time to process this one, but to say I’m over the moon, to say that I am overjoyed, to say that I am a little gobsmacked … all of that would be to understate how magical this moment is. We’ve beaten a Serie A side home and away.
We have ten points in this group. We are through.
What a wonderful display that was in the second half.
People are going to say we rode our luck; listen, don’t pay a single bit of attention to any of that obvious rot, because I’ve seen Celtic sides go down a goal early in European matches against teams like this and been brutalised.
At no point tonight did I believe this one would be.
Because this one fought.
They were on the back foot in the first half, but we were playing away against a Lazio side that had to win … pure and simple.
Of course we were going to be on the back foot.
But we withstood. We did not quit. Our opponents are a top quality side, sitting in fourth in Italy right now. Their form of late has been excellent at home.
Yet we did not buckle under them.
The keeper made some good saves.
The defenders made some key interceptions, but that’s what they are for.
The post saved us at least once.
You know what?
That’s what the post is there for as well.
The ball has to pass in between them before your team gets awarded a goal and tonight we managed that twice and Lazio managed it once, just like at Celtic Park.
I am thrilled for everyone at the club, from the manager to the players and especially to our amazing traveling support who, in Europe, have been on the back end of too many beatings in the last twenty years, when our so-called “dreadful away record” was being formed … we can put that nonsense in the rear-view mirror tonight along with much else.
I am afraid there’s not going to be much insight tonight. I am going to need peeled off the ceiling before I can commit to sitting down and thinking rationally about this; I am amazed I’ve done 400 words without a big string of YEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
Because honestly, that’s all that’s going through my head at the moment.
We have survived the Coliseum.
The Lions have eaten the Romans.
We came, we saw, we conquered.
GIRFUY to the critics, the cynics and the haters tonight.
This is all about us tonight, all about this excellent, never-say-die team the manager has built here.
That was what counted tonight, that was the difference between this team and some of the others I’ve watched in the Hoops, many with allegedly better players – although I will tackle that tomorrow and you might be surprised what I write – but without this strong mentality.
I love this club, and tonight I am going to enjoy the simple act of enjoying a big win.
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celticnoise · 4 years
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There is an amazing tendency in our media towards cognitive dissonance.
This has been apparent in the last couple of days as opprobrium has poured onto the right-wing fascist supporters of Lazio on the occasion of their visit to Glasgow for last night’s game.
And these fans deserve every bit of criticism and condemnation that is coming their way.
We don’t want these people in Scotland, and in particular in our football grounds.
Here’s the thing though; there have been fascists in Scotland’s football grounds for years, the media has been shamefully silent most of the time. Only occasionally do they actually go after it, aggressively, and properly. At other times they actually make excuses for it.
We’ve seen Rangers fans make Nazi salutes in Israel, Hearts fans welcoming Tommy Robinson and the Union Bears and all the baggage they carry.
It’s the tip of the iceberg, and our media’s complacency on it has been shameful.
Already, I can anticipate the squealing in their own defence.
They can scream into the mirror. Some of them know this is true, and they should be disgusted over it. There are a handful of them in our press who do actually get this and care about it … they are woefully underrepresented in the media rooms and their voices don’t carry far.
You don’t have to look back that far to see black-clad thugs marching down a Scottish street and making fascist salutes.
It happened towards the end of last season, and those thugs advertised their match in advance.
You might remember them.
There was zero media condemnation of that. Zero.
The story barely bleeped on the press radar.
It was Celtic sites who highlighted how disgusting that spectacle was. It was Celtic sites which said that march should never have been allowed to take place. It was Celtic sites who pointed out the deeply disturbing and fascistic overtones in it.
It is a dangerous thing to allow supporters to get away with.
And these were the same fans who caused UEFA to sanction their club.
The media refuses to acknowledge that.
Just days later, they won praise for their behaviour against us, in spite of thousands of them chanting hatred the whole match and where their disgraceful banner depicted a dead Celtic fan.
Lazio fans aren’t from here. They are an easy target.
Whilst I completely agree that we don’t want these people on our streets, my frustration extends to Orange Walks every July as well, on top of the collection of gutter rats who stain Scottish football’s reputation.
Some of us do care about this for more than just appearances sake.
Some of this isn’t just faux outrage but the real kind.
The media which defended the Ibrox fans for their own scummy salutes on the grounds that they were “Red Hand Salutes” instead don’t get to climb onto any moral high ground here.
Their defence on behalf of the Ibrox fans was that killing Catholics was more acceptable than gassing Jews.
I’m afraid I have a problem with that.
I’m afraid a lot of people do.
I guess it is simpler to care when it’s your own blood they are talking about being up to their knees in.
When it’s not, it’s easier to dismiss.
This article’s poll question is more a rhetorical one … I think most of us would answer the same way.
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celticnoise · 4 years
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In the aftermath of Saturday’s game, Neil Lennon lavished praise on the team by saying that it was the “most complete performance” of his time back at the club.
I would go one better and say its one of the best a Lennon team has turned in, and back before Ronny and the other guy came along Celtic routinely handed out beatings like this.
It wasn’t just the result though, as comprehensive as it was.
Lennon waxed lyrical about the whole performance, the style of it, the strut of the players, the quality every one of them showed. He sounds as if he was frustrated at half time with the score only 1-0, and I understand why; that display had been deserving of more goals.
It’s been one of the more frustrating things about watching the team these last two years; we have often shown an inability to prove clinical in front of goal, in order to kill teams off. That cost us quite a few points these last couple of campaigns.
Lennon said as much to the team. “We threw down the challenge at half-time – we can be a nice team and play good football and give the other team oxygen to stay in the game or be ruthless,” he said. And he did, of course, get his answer “in spades.”
Before five minutes of the second half were up the match was beyond Ross County and from then on it was only going to be a matter of how many. This is the cutting edge this team has now, and we’ve managed to marry it to playing stuff that is pleasing on the eye.
Some of the cute little lay-offs and cut backs were pure class.
Two individual performances in particular – those of Frimpong and Edouard – are as good as I’ve seen from our players since this campaign got underway, which is a pretty big statement in itself considering how well we’ve played in other games.
But that was display was a bit special overall.
It’s all the more impressive when you consider that the team broke up after Livingston and only had a few days together to prepare for this game. In spite of that there was something akin to telepathy in some of the football we played.
Look at the right hand side with Forrest and Frimpong for a fine example of what I mean.
And the passing from the middle out wide … as good as I’ve seen in a long, long time.
Players were moving off the ball; I frequently criticised the static nature of some of our play during the latter part of Rodgers’ time at the club.
Yesterday there was fluidity, and it quite simply tore Ross County apart from the first minute to last.
So yes, Lennon was right to praise that team as fulsomely as he did.
But I’ll tell you this, he has earned some very high praise himself because that was unquestionably a Lennon team giving a Lennon type performance yesterday. Gone was the backward passing, the hesitancy, the over-complicated. The ball moved forward, always forward, and at pace.
The manager himself deserves some of the plaudits.
This team is starting to bear his mark, and when you consider his wins to games ratio that can only mean the good times will keep on rolling.
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celticnoise · 5 years
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Neil Lennon spoke yesterday about tonight’s game in a way that was both interesting and a big relief to all of us who thought that Brendan Rodgers used to be a little too cavalier at times when we were out on our away match manoeuvres.
Brendan’s record, even in the years when we reached the Champions League groups, even in those qualifiers where we went through, wasn’t as good as Lennon’s has been in this campaign. We’ve been excellent in the four away matches we’ve played under the current manager.
There have been none of the jitters that usual accompanies our away days.
The irony, of course, is that the worst performance we turned in so far was at home, against Cluj. That will continue to frustrate most people at Parkhead until we get the chance to make amends which, fortunately, won’t be long in coming.
Tonight its Rennes, away from home. That’s a difficult match. They are a fantastic team and the last thing we can afford to do against such a side is go gung-ho. Lennon appears to have no intention of playing into their hands with such a setup or performance.
In fact, he spoke yesterday as if we’re going to alter the team shape to play a more conservative style.
That is certainly what is required. We only need a point to give ourselves a very good chance in this group. A team can qualify with 10 points and we’re capable of winning the home games and possibly even beating Cluj home and away.
So what formation will he chose? I don’t think it’ll be the standard 4-2-3-1 which we’ve come to know and love, first under Rodgers and now under Neil.
He may tighten it and play a four-man midfield with a single striker and a link between the two – a 4-4-1-1.
The beauty of that system is that it retains all our current personnel but in a much more compact shape.
If he wants to be defensive he can drop Brown back to play between the midfield and defence, and ditch Christie for a midfield duo of McGregor and Ntcham in front of Brown, with the onus on getting the ball wide and bringing the wingers in to support Eddie.
That formation requires the three front men to cover a lot of ground, as there’s nobody “in the hole” between them and the midfield.
But it does give the defensive unit that solidity which might be needed on a night like this.
Nobody can conceive of Lennon playing a 3-5-2 or anything that involves dumping the full backs, but that doesn’t mean that a three-man central defence is necessarily out of the question either; he can go with Ajer, Jullien and Abd Elhamed with Bauer on the right and Bolingoli on the left; a 5-3-2 with the Ntcham, Brown and McGregor in the middle and Christie or Forrest supporting Edouard, either as secondary strikers or “false nines”.
Lennon said yesterday that we have “(assessed) … scenarios in terms of changing formation. We are not expecting to have the bulk of possession, which we normally have. Rennes are excellent on the ball and use the 3-5-2 system very, very well. They have had some stellar results already this season, including beating PSG, and they are sitting second in Ligue 1.”
They are, indeed, a formidable side.
“We have given this game quite a bit of thought over the last few days and we have worked on a few things, and the players are ready.” Lennon said, so the players already know what the approach is likely to be.
This is another very good sign that Lennon is a much improved manager from the one who left Celtic Park previously.
His away record in Europe so far is superb, and he showed at Ibrox that he knows how to set up a team to directly combat what an opposing manager is thinking … Lennon’s tactical plan was vastly better than that which Gerrard put forward on the day.
Tonight he has to get it just as spot on.
We’ll find out what he’s thinking at a little after five, I expect.
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celticnoise · 5 years
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Ok so first up, I’m neither a “Lennon hater” nor a “Lawwell hater”, so please don’t waste your time, at the end of this piece, by posting that infantile nonsense in the comments.
Instead, I want to have a look at some of the claims made about both.
Firstly, there’s old Pistol Pete himself.
Anytime I or others criticise him we hear about how “Lawwell has overseen eight in a row and the progress of the club.”
I’m certainly not trying to detract from the fact we’ve won a Treble Treble, which is an incredible achievement, but would we have expected any less than eight in a row?
Let us be completely honest, with the Ibrox implosion, and given our finances, we’ve had a free run at it.
Even in the last three years, the NewCo has lurched from drama to crisis and overall have been pretty shambolic.
With our finances and the difference in playing squads, I think eight in a row was the least we could expect to have done.
So where do we measure progress?
It has to be in Europe!
Peter Lawwell arrived at the end of Martin O’Neill’s time. We weren’t that distant from having been in a European final, but a decision had been taken to hit the brakes. Obviously we couldn’t spend the way O’Neill did in his first few seasons, and every sensible person accepts that … but when it comes to season book renewal time we’re constantly told we’re a Champions League, so should that not be the standard that we hold Lawwell to?
People of my age and older will vividly remember the champions league campaigns under O’Neill. That’s when our club was really punching its weight.
The last one saw us in a group with Bayern Munich, Lyon and Anderlecht.
We finished on seven points if I remember right.
A typically ‘Celtic’ defeat to an Anderlecht team we probably should have beat cost us but the image that’s always stuck in my mind was at the end of the 0-0 home draw with Bayern Munich; their players were celebrating on the park for securing a draw and I was gutted we hadn’t won.
Against Bayern Munich!
Now Munich are in a different stratosphere, but can you imagine any of the top 4 or 5 teams in any of the top 5 leagues coming to Celtic Park and us being gutted with a 0-0 draw while they celebrate holding out? No, it would be the other way round.
After O’Neill left and the downsizing began.
We were routed by an Artmedia Bratislava team containing Filip Sebo, but WGS being the tactician that he was punched above his weight and we had some more magnificent nights at Celtic Park. We were still a fortress.
Strachan eventually left amidst rumours being that he could no longer work under Peter Lawwell’s constraints.
We won’t talk about Tony Mowbray, the gentleman that he is, except for this; he was Peter Lawwell’s appointment. He was the guy Lawwell chose to replace a manager who delivered three titles in a row and two Champions League knock-out stages.
So we move onto Neil Lennon. A risky appointment – James still says it was a scandalous one because Lennon had no experience – but thanks to either John Park or his own ability to spot a player we made a handful of excellent signings and managed to get out the groups again.
We also beat Barca which was one of the most iconic of Parkhead nights.
Everyone involved deserves credit for that one including Lawwell. But what did we do? Did we double down and try to improve the team? No, Rangers imploded and we sold five first team players and eventually Neil left for the same reason as Strachan.
I’m not going to go through all the years since, but if we fast forward a decade to Lennon being appointed manager again can anyone really say we’ve made progress?
We’ve lost 5 out of 7 qualifiers to teams with a fraction of our wage bill.
AEK Athens, Malmo, Cluj, Maribor are all teams that you would expect a ‘Champions League team’ to beat over two legs.
We got through by the skin of our teeth against Hapoel Beersheva, we’re coming out of a Europa League qualifier against the team who finished top in Sweden last year and it was far from certain that we’d beat them and we’ve appointed Lennon again after having a top notch manager leave, in no small part, because of Lawwell’s constraints.
We appointed him after Lawwell himself admitted to not interviewing any other candidates!
That’s an appalling dereliction of duty.
What qualified Neil to get the job of progressing Celtic? It certainly wasn’t his record since leaving before, so what was it? Just being a Celtic fan? Being a cheaper option? Being more pliable? I would have liked to hear why he was given the job, but Lawwell never speaks to us.
Lennon may well turn out to do a great job – many think he will – but I thought our policy was “risk averse”?
How can this not be a risk, or does that only apply to players?
My opinion is that we’ve all been so content laughing at what’s happened at Ibrox, and sweeping up domestically, that we’ve taken our eye off the ball … or as the Green Brigade put it falling “asleep at the wheel.” What’s been going on over across the city has been a welcome redirection for our board while they downsize year after year but continue to talk us up as a CL club.
Lawwell has overseen a period where we’ve gone from Bayern Munich players celebrating on the pitch for taking a point off us to facing the 3rd best team in Sweden and sweating it before the match kicked off, so where’s the progress here? Someone lay it out for me.
Chris Cominato is a Celtic fan and blogger, and one of the admins on our Facebook Group.
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celticnoise · 5 years
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So Craig Levein becomes the first manager in Scotland to “stand up for Lennon” as our manager faces the criticism that goes with making huge mistakes at the biggest club in the country. I daresay more managers will throw their two-bob into the ring if things at Celtic get worse.
The violins will be out, and they will be playing the usual song.
But neither Lennon nor our support should believe for one second that those violins are for Lennon himself, because they won’t be and they never are.
Managers back other managers because they fear for their own jobs and understand that the cat-calls from their own stands are just a few bad results away.
Levein knows that more than most.
Last season, he finished 6th in the SPL, bottom of the top half after the split. We beat them in both cup competitions, in one final and in one semi-final. To some that signifies “progress” but only if you think that’s what it looks like.
This season they’ve started the league with a loss and a draw and we’re up next, at Celtic Park.
Before that game ends, they could be bottom of the table, and at that point he’ll be under the spotlight himself, with games against Hamilton and Motherwell to come before he takes his team to Easter Road. Levein is not looking out for Lennon, he’s looking out for Levein.
The so-called top teams in this league really do have second-rate managers at the helm right now, and that’ll be reflected in what I genuinely expect to be a record points gap between the team in first and the team in third when the season closes out.
Gerrard is as mediocre as the rest of them but he has a big enough squad to get second spot, and probably miles ahead of the next club. Aberdeen tolerates McInnes more than makes the slightest sense whilst Hibs are content with mid-table ignominy. Kilmarnock have decisively gone backwards.
But Levein is the real belle of the ball, but only if the ball in question is an Ugly Sister competition.
He is the real triumph of mediocrity, a man in his job only because he gave it to himself, which is the second worst way to pick a manager after the one where you throw all the applicants letters in the bin unread and go with the caretaker you’ve got.
That’s what we’ve become now in Scottish football, that’s the meritocracy at work.
Of course these guys are going to bat for each other.
They’re all scared that the fans will stop accepting the way that they are short-changed.
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celticnoise · 5 years
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Today we were six minutes from seeing the proudest record in domestic football gambled on the lottery of a penalty shoot-out. At home. Against Dunfermline.
Before the game I heard the formation – Lennon went with a 3-1-4-2.
I knew then we were in for a long and difficult day.
That was so un-necessary, so ridiculous, so absolutely mental.
Overcomplicated nonsense instead of a straightforward system.
He played two full backs in a system without any.
The left back was played as a winger.
The right back was a centre back.
Mikey Johnston was on the left.
I have no idea where Ryan Christie was meant to be.
It is so, so, so stupid. There was no need for it at all. He had the players to play a straight 4-4-2, and he opted, instead, for playing with the tactics board like a kid with his first set of Mobil blocks. The performance as not in the least bit surprising to me.
If he does this in midweek, we will get beat. If he does it at Hearts, we will drop points.
If he tries any of his over-elaborate idiocy at Ibrox we’ll get tanked.
There are people still living in denial about Tuesday. I don’t know how they can be in denial right now. I do not believe for one second that they would still have been in denial had we gone out of the League Cup this afternoon … and we were close.
Lennon rode his luck today and no mistake. He rode it right round the rim. One slip … and it’d have been all over, for a whole lot of people.
Forrest’s winner was deflected into the net.
Sometimes you hit the mark and sometimes you don’t … and today our incredible run of form in the cup competitions was decided on a break of the ball.
There are those who think that talk of boycotts and protests, pressuring Lawwell to quit, has come too soon.
They think questioning the manager is something that still ought to be deferred.
In my opinion we’re in a far more horrible place than that.
It may well be that such talk has come too late, that the damage is already done, that the first stones are rolling down the mountain, presaging the avalanche. I know this; if this goes all the way bad, it’ll be destructive enough that nobody can possibly mistake it for anything other than a disaster.
Today I was waiting for the sky to fall. Helpless, unable to influence what was unfolding, I was waiting for the moment that brought everything crashing down. Forrest’s goal was a relief so great that I felt momentarily dizzy and then sick.
When you look at the full picture you see how serious this is.
It’s not about one result, one bad night at the office, a set of tactical decisions which are indefensible and which the manager refuses to even acknowledge that he got wrong. It’s his hiring in the first place, the total absence of systems to support him, the complete lack of a strategy underpinning it all.
For the first time ever, I really believe we might lose this league.
Not only did we fail to prepare for Europe, but we’ve imperilled our domestic dominance at the same time, by a combination of factors and disastrous decisions.
With any major disaster, there is usually a warning just beforehand.
I wrote last year about the Great Cascadia Fault-Line and how one day it will devastate the Pacific Northwest; if you were there at that moment you would feel something akin to that impression of falling when you’re dreaming and you jerk wide awake, except this will be an actual physical sensation. Then the dogs will start to howl and for around a half a minute you’ll be suspended in an eerie bubble of bewilderment and a growing, swelling fear. And then it’ll hit you.
In a similar manner, if you’re standing on a beach and you watch the tide suddenly sweep out, leaving you able to actually see the ocean floor, fish, corals and all, then you should run and you should not stop until you reach high ground, because that’s your tsunami warning … and even armed with that foreknowledge you don’t have an awful lot of time.
I don’t know if the dogs are howling yet, but Tuesday night gave us all a sudden jolt.
Yet a lot of people are still not quite grasping the full seriousness of what we witnessed.
Today we can hear the swelling roar of the ocean rising up.
Whilst I was refreshing myself on the mechanics of what tsunami experts call the drawback, I came across a picture of kids playing on a beach in Thailand, in which some folk are standing around or picking up shells on sand that moments before had been completely under water.
In the background of that picture you can see the white of the incoming wave. That photo was taken at Phuket, on Boxing Day 2004. 259 people died in that general area, amongst the 4000 who were killed on the west coast of the country during that particular disaster.
I don’t know what’s heading for us in the next few weeks or months, but I’m bracing myself for it.
It’s too late to do anything else.
If I’m wrong we’ve got nothing to worry about.
If myself and others are right, the tsunami’s already on its way.
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