Arne Engels has called out the media messengers after a week of hysteria followed Celtic’s League Cup victory at Hampden.
It was trophy number one for the Belgian, a 10th as Celtic manager for Brendan Rodgers and an incredible 25th for James Forrest.
Oh, and the surpassed the trophy tally of the self assessed Most Successful Club in the World.
The action at Hampden was typical Scottish slapstick with the goals of Nicolas Kuhn and Daizen Maeda adding some much needed glitter.
Engels played a key role in the occasion, coming on as a second half substitute, providing the run and assist for Kuhn’s goal then as the youngest player on the park stepping up to send a penalty past Super Jack Butland.
That ought to have provided a few talking points and headlines but after being ordered to dig the media messengers went to town on behalf of Phil Clement with an incredible week.
Neil McCann, Kris Boyd and Ally McCoist led the traditional forms of attack, Bobby Madden and the Randy Reverend McCurry provided support services with fan media excelling itself.
One eagle-eyed fan on the Rangers Rabble revealed that Maeda’s goal should have been disallowed for a stamp on Leon Balogun’s ankle as the digging reached new depths.
It is highly doubtful if Engels or his team-mates bother with the legacy media outlets that have barely mentioned Celtic surpassing the trophy total from Ibrox, back in the real world on Friday the Daily Record questioned the hoops midfielder about the outside reaction over the last week.
He could have shortened it down to a two word reply ending in OFF but gave them the courtesy of a structured reply.
Nobody at this club really cares about what other people say about us. We only look at ourselves.
We know what goals we have for the rest of the season and that’s what we’re working towards. A really strong part of our squad is that we don’t look at other things, only ourselves.
Is it a shame that people are talking about other things? James equalled a record by winning the trophy, he has so many medals now and is a quality player.
So if there needs to be something said after Sunday, it should be about him. Celtic is the biggest club in Scotland so it’s all about winning trophies. Hopefully we can achieve that together.
The winning mentality here is different to what I’ve experienced before. It’s a case of winning one trophy and it’s on to the next one. That’s our mindset here.
With Willie Collum and Ian Maxwell falling over themselves to apologise to Clement and his losers the SFA have set themselves up for future honest mistakes.
No ‘off the record’ briefing has gone out about the reasons why Chris Graham sent off Dan Casey on Friday night as Motherwell drew with Kilmarnock. No request to dig was sent out by Stuart Kettlewell.
Collum is struggling to get officials to cover the festive fixtures, it seems that some referees aren’t thrilled at how Alan Muir and Frank Connor were thrown under the bus by the Worst Referee in Scottish football over the last 20 years.
In less than four months Engels has learned quickly how the media and authorities work in Scotland, if he finishes the season as an SPFL title winner he’ll also discover the magical powers of the number 55 over the deranged and dangerous.
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1 Comment
by John A
We are leaving both clubs trophy tally in our dust! Happy Xmas everyone!