Shame on the hackers who stuck their sharpened pencils into the Celtic captain.

Lina Portman3 weeks ago

1 3 minutes read

MUNICH, GERMANY – JUNE 14: Dejected Scotland fans, wearing cap, feather and makeup, react during the UEFA EURO 2024 group stage match between Germany and Scotland at the Munich Football Arena on June 14, 2024 in Munich, Germany. (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

Whenever a team loses a major match, the pundits are always looking for a scapegoat, and when the team is Scotland, it is helpful for them if there is a Celtic player to blame. With Tom English, before the match, pushing the idea that Callum McGregor might not even make the team – and he wasn't the first to do it – I knew watching this last night that some of they would not be able to resist. he.

Graeme Souness isn't even worth worrying about. His comments are a joke. Souness is a joke.

He has reached the point where he no longer feels obliged to present the slightest veneer of diplomacy, or even rationality. Instead, he launches into biased rants about things he doesn't like or agree with, and Celtic are just one of the targets in his crosshairs.

I don't even care about his remarks, they are as completely stupid as one would expect. Which hasn't stopped the mainstream media from spreading his trash everywhere today, along with any other comments they can find that cast our captain in a bad light.

They also pointed out a single throwaway remark from Roy Keane, although he clearly blames others for what he watched than McGregor.

And of course he would. Most of the hacks identified players who were more to blame than our captain, but as usual, a select few took perverse satisfaction in poking their sharp pencils into him.

It's depressing how predictable this was. I knew watching him that McGregor was going to get criticized by some people, people who couldn't wait to pick on him.

Look, it was a bad night. In fact, it was a very bad night, especially for the defense, which was six and seven and barely seemed to function as a unit. This has never been the strongest area of the Scotland team, and we all know that well.

But their lack of coordination was horrendous to witness, and while, yes, much of the criticism should be directed at the players, I think you could just as easily blame Steve Clarke for a chronic defensive setup and the abandonment of the top. -press football which brought him some of his best career results.

It certainly couldn't have resulted in a worse night.

It was a collective failure last night, even if Ryan Porteous is a player who has too many thoughtless moments like that in his game. But he is not responsible for the magnitude of the defeat; I didn't see anything that convinced me that we would necessarily have done better if he had stayed the course. There was simply too little imagination or brilliance in this performance, and too little quality to resist when those rampaging German attackers were racing towards the back line.

Scotland isn't out of the woods, but it needs a boost. They need to be much better and ashamed of the hackers who are pointing the finger at the individuals, the individuals we need to stay strong and in their game and who will be playing in these matches.

The only reason I can single out Porteous in this article is because he won't be eligible for any of them… but I won't hold it against him if the rest of the team rallies, gets us through and he has a another chance.

Callum McGregor will be crucial to all of our hopes… but that hasn't stopped a handful of people from being left in the boot.

Many of our hackers hate Celtic more than they love their country.

It shouldn't surprise me the way some of them behave, but they continually find depths I didn't think they were capable of.

The first ever CelticBlog podcast is out now… you can listen to it here.