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James Forrest of The Celtic Blog explains why an article was hastily removed

James Forrest from The Celtic Blog made an interesting appearance on the Endless Celts podcast on Friday night to give the run through of a day laced with dramatic events in Celtic cyberspace.

It was a lengthy podcast but could be summarised by the alleged decision of the Celtic Chairman to get someone inside the club to contact Forrest to remove an article or there would be legal consequences.

Forrest complied with that ‘request’, the page remains but without the article, 12 comments were posted between 8.48am and 10.17am which provide the gist of the content.

I managed to read the article which highlighted the differences in how Celtic performed during the summer 2021 and January 2022 transfer windows and since then, the comments suggest that many who read it agreed with the conclusions that Forrest arrived at.

It would be an understatement to say that Forrest is passionate about all matters Celtic, he cares, wants to see the club perform at its best in every area and argues for that factually.

It was about half past nine this morning, and, I was told to remove it because the Chairman had read it and wasn’t happy about it, and there would be a legal consequence if I didn’t remove it.

The first two transfer windows driven by Ange Postecoglou shows what can be done, there was nothing notoriously difficult about either window. A manager with a plan and a decent grasp of the market identified players that he wanted, they were delivered by those inside the club.

The contrast between those two windows and the four since, plus the current one is stark. It took more than 10 weeks from the Scottish Cup Final to secure Paulo Bernardo on a permanent transfer. That timescale doesn’t bode well for further arrivals with less than four weeks remaining for transfer business.

Rodgers has been very selective in his comments about his transfer frustrations. After losing to Lazio in November he revealed that his initial assessment of the squad was that four quality starters were required, that was before the departures of Jota, Carl Starfelt and Aaron Mooy.

When the January window closed Rodgers said that he felt that the club could be braver.

During the three match trip to the USA the Celtic boss name checked Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay when he was quizzed on transfer progress.

It seems that the Celtic Chairman may have become very sensitive over criticism, 90 minutes after a critical blog post was published instructions were issued which has drawn greater attention to the now removed content.

Forrest complied but explained that he would be detailing why the article had been removed, last night he did that on the Endless Celts progress.

The irony of all this, as he admitted on the podcast was that he has been much more critical of areas of the club in previous articles that are still up there on The Celtic Blog.

It seems that the phone call requesting that the article was removed has generated far more attention than it would ever have created, perhaps an issue for some to ponder over. No factual inaccuracies were highlighted in the content but something jarred at a nerve.

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11 Comments

  • by Pedro
    Posted August 5, 2024 10:21 pm 0Likes

    The wee mouthpiece shat it. Period.

    • by John
      Posted August 5, 2024 11:44 pm 0Likes

      Most of us believe lawwell is pulling the strings on our transfer dealings. He needs to go, we will never unite with him there.

      • by Sandy
        Posted August 6, 2024 12:48 am 0Likes

        There could only be legal issues if what was being claimed was untrue.

        • by Brian Fearon
          Posted August 6, 2024 8:58 am 0Likes

          Fair point

    • by William Melvin
      Posted August 6, 2024 12:57 am 0Likes

      100%
      He had the chance that not many have presented to them in life to stand up to the bully but as you already said,he absolutely shat it !
      I barred myself from reading Forrest’s stuff after he falsley described a reply of mine submitted to one of his blogs and then refused to debate the issue(all because l had called him out on his shift of stance regarding affairs at Celtic FC).
      However,l was sent the offending article he published on Friday and to be fair to him it was well written and factual.
      His reasoning for his pulling the article after Pete the Parasite set his legal attack dogs on him was absolutely pathetic,and to be honest,unable to be believable by anyone with a shred of intelligence and rationality as being the true reason for it’s disappearance.
      For him to state,live on air on the podcast,that his explanation for withdrawing his article was that he didn’t mean for anyone to be unhappy and sad at what he had written was laughable In the extreme.
      Why is he even doing his blog if that is the case ?
      The truth of the matter is,and I have already messaged him to the effect is that he is a gutless,spineless waste of space for his cowardly backing down to the cancerous individual who,if he had any thoughts about the wellbeing of our club and not for himself,would abdicate his role as chairman because it is obvious to anyone with an ounce of intelligence that he will always remain a divisive character among our fanbase as long as he remains in office.
      If Lawwell had any decency he would stand aside but he is a narcissist of the highest order so all we can hope for is that his tenure as chairman of our great club is ended by a higher authority than that of the Paddy golfer with one extra club(Celtic FC) in his bag !
      Hopefully,that higher authority will rid us of him at the same time as this is probably the only way these hun enablers will be removed from G40……..Feet first !
      As for Forrest,he has destroyed any and all credibility and respect among the Celtic support he may ever or would have had with this one act of utter cowardice.
      He should do the honorable thing and terminate writing his blog but he,too, is cut from the same cloth as Lawwell and Desmond so don’t expect him to do the right and decent thing.
      Thank christ l have barred myself from reading his witterings.
      The guy is a complete and total fraud and any future efforts from him will be tainted by his lack of courage this past weekend.
      Hell mend him !

    • by UlyssesGunt
      Posted August 6, 2024 11:03 am 0Likes

      Agree 100%…

  • by Justshatered
    Posted August 5, 2024 10:38 pm 0Likes

    I’ve been saying the same as James since the end of the last transfer window in January.
    People say that the Chairman is more of an honorary role as if Celtic operate like a normal business.
    I don’t know of any other business that, after a dreadful season, has an internal review that essentially results in the CEO leaving but then the same person is appointed as Chairman eighteen months later.
    That is odd and raises yet more questions on the way the organisation operates.

  • by Amcq14
    Posted August 6, 2024 2:51 am 0Likes

    What an opportunity missed by the blogger. Having a little more guts he should have called their bluff by the time they got around to bringing in the heavies, what they seemed to deem as inappropriate would have been everywhere. He wouldn’t have walked this alone.

  • by Clara
    Posted August 6, 2024 7:32 am 0Likes

    The only thing wrong with James’s article is that he went after the Monkey not the Organ Grinder or does anyone really believe that what PL does is detached from DD views on things. In DD’S head it’s his Club and to feck with us fans, he showed that in the COVID season when he kept a disastrous manager in place just to spite the fans.

  • by Pcelt
    Posted August 6, 2024 8:21 am 0Likes

    What legal consequences?If there was no slander or factual inaccuracies there would be no legal case to answer.So what legal consequences is he threatening?

  • by Big Scoop
    Posted August 6, 2024 1:47 pm 0Likes

    How long is PL allowed to get away with this. If Celtic don’t come out of this widow stronger and go into the champions league with scales at the back (decent spl player) then I won’t be buying the CL package and PL should be forced out our club by fan power.

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