When it came to competition in the chase for new Celtic signing Aaron Mooy, Newcastle United and Mooy’s former director of football at former club Brighton, Dan Ashworth, was seen as possible challenge. There were also a host of English Championship clubs said to be hopeful of enticing the Aussie international south of the border after his release by Chinese club Shanghai Port – and all of the clubs competing for Mooy’s signature were given plenty of column inches.
It also appears there was one newer club a little closer to home who looked to gazump Celtic and land Aaron Mooy for themselves.
Yet Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s briefly reported late in the day approach to Mooy’s agent and the apparent seven voicemail messages left on the player’s phone, appears to have only seen the publish button hit once by the Scottish mainstream press and even then, only appears to have seen the light of day, for a matter of seconds before being succulently pulled from the Daily Record website. A Celtic supporter grabbed this screenshot before the story mysteriously vanished.
Gavin Berry appears to have been the journalist who initially published the story, yet somehow it appears the headlines that would have followed across many platforms were avoided by a hasty withdrawal by someone somewhere at the Daily Record.
Was there anything in this story that was oh so briefly published and if there was why was it pulled? How did the Record find out about it but no other outlet did or maybe they did and decided to stay on message?
The summer transfer window as far as the reporting of the Ibrox club’s transfer activity has remarkably always featured the narrative that some player or other has rejected Celtic advances to sign for theRangers instead and even when they were selling their best players, for example Bassey, there was a desperate need to convince everyone that they’d got more money that Celtic received for Kieran Tierney. That £25m fee was actually £25m in hard cash, not some fantasy accounting that they seem to love down river especially if it involves a wee dig at Celtic.
The hacks who pay £25k per season – unless there has been a price increase for the new season – might ask theRangers manager if he did make a series of phone calls to Mooy ahead of him signing for Celtic. Better to clear it up and all that. An if Mooy does a fan media conference as usually happens, you can be sure that he’ll be asked about this. Even if he declines to comment it would sort of tell us all we need to know.
Compare and contrast to the story of a 15-year-old Motherwell player who received the ‘Gers beat Celts to wonderkid’ treatment just three weeks ago and it makes you wonder who operates the levers when it comes to the Scottish mainstream press doesn’t it?
Actually, I don’t think we have to do much wondering at all on that score do we?
As a wind-up all of these stories mentioned above seem to have the same intention – a wee boost for theRangers and a wee dig at Celtic, so it’s refreshing to see this one – wind-up or otherwise – going in the other direction.
Niall J
Really? You’re keepin this up? .. & deletin my message that it’s fake? Come on, you’re better than that!