As Celtic fans we’ve all been called a lot worse than ‘that other mob’. As such January’s penalty-cheat Fashion Sakala’s attempts to play to the gallery at the players’ press conference ahead of Sunday’s Scottish League Cup Final is likely to have elicited little more than a shrug of the shoulders from anyone attached to Celtic.
With penalty-cheat Sakala reported as reported by Daily Record as saying: “Obviously, I know how important the game is when you play the other mob. I believe it is all about the badge, and I don’t really think about my individual performance, the most important thing is about the win for the fans, and the club and the good performance from the players.”
However, penalty-cheat Sakala wasn’t trying to annoy us, was he? Instead it was his own fans he was attempting to pander to.
And to that end he’s just following his manager’s example, with Mick Beale already having had to walk back his own comments after seemingly being unable to use the name of our club and instead resorting to describing us as ‘the other team’. Evidently it will take more than club-issue blue suits and a pair of brown brogues to lift standards at Ibrox under the rookie manager’s watch.
Meanwhile compare and contrast to the words of Ange Postecoglou, also quoted in Daily Record, who appears acutely aware of the scrutiny involved in the build up to such a big game, and ask yourselves if the shoe was on the other foot and theRangers boss was talking like this, while our players and management had their focus on ham fisted attempts to pander to us, would we be feeling confident?
“There is so much attention on everything we do over the next few days. You can get narky about it or complain about it or you can just embrace it as the fact it’s a big game this week, with a big prize at the end of it and just roll with it.
“The players get asked for cup final tickets, or people around them get excited. As long as the players embrace that and don’t let it affect their preparation then that’s fine. I’ve found that’s the best way to handle these games.
“I’ve found over the course of time that big games are big games. There’s no point trying to shy away from that or trying to treat it like every other game because you know they’re not. The players are human beings and they understand what’s at stake at the weekend and the possibility of winning a trophy. You want them excited about that stuff, you want them understanding the consequences of those games. If you embrace that then there’s nothing that’s going to come along which should switch away your focus.
“It’s not a normal week. As much as you want to say just keep it as a normal week, it’s not.”
And that’s the crux of the matter. If that is where their attention is focused just a few days out from a Glasgow Derby cup final – on playing to the gallery and trying to score cheap points in the press – then the focus at Ibrox clearly isn’t on the job at hand – and that suits all of us just fine.
Which simply shows no-one at Celtic has to concern themselves with penalty-cheat Fashion Sakala. Not when we have style. And class.
Niall J
It didn’t take Sakala long to embrace the nastiness and cheating at Ibrox. He has fitted in like a glove, which tells you a lot about him as a person. Being there will not improve him as a player and it will not improve him as a person. One becomes infected at that place.