The substance behind the Mirror’s Benitez to Celtic story

It was inevitable that Rafa Benitez would be linked with Celtic from the moment his departure from Dalian Professional was announced at lunchtime on Saturday.

Celtic fans on Twitter quickly speculated about it, soon afterwards the bookies were cutting the odds on the Spaniard becoming the next permanent Celtic boss then betting was suspended.

It was a predictable pattern in the modern new cycle triggered by one event. Then at 50 minutes past midnight on Saturday the story took a new twist, suddenly it had an element of credibility, substance.

The Mirror headline of ‘Rafa Benitez to be appointed new Celtic manager after quitting job in China’ was as definite as you can get, it wasn’t an approach, in talks or making contact. It was happening.

It wasn’t the creative thinking of any hopeful ‘online/digital’ reporter but carried the by-line of Simon Mullock.

For 18 years Mullock has been the Chief Football writer at the Sunday Mirror, adapting from the old print days to the digital age, rolling news and instant delivery.

From his Manchester base he has built up strong contacts across the game, not many in Scotland but he’ll know Benitez and his representatives from his time in charge of Liverpool, Chelsea and Newcastle.

Before clicking on send or publish Mullock will have checked out his story with a few sources, if he had any doubt on it he’d have toned down the language and made his copy and headline less definite.

Rafa Benitez is set to become Celtic’s new manager. The former Liverpool, Chelsea and Newcastle boss has quit Chinese Super League club Dalian Pro.

That introduction leaves little doubt about Mullock’s conviction on the story.

One strange aspect is that the Mirror and Daily Record as well as Express/Star all fall under the Reach Group where the pooling of resources is everything as print sales and advertising plummet.

It seems that the Daily Record website missed out on this story which is strange since the potential audience is much more like to be among Record readers than visitors to the Mirror website. It wasn’t until after 8am that the Record picked up on the story as they trawled through other publishers to see what they were running with.

CLICK HERE for Mullock’s other stories, concentrated on Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United.