Watching John McGinn’s performance and goal for Scotland against Austria should have been a source of joy and plenty of material for any journalist reporting on the match from Vienna.Â
The Aston Villa midfielder is an outstandingly consistent element of the Scotland national team, going into any competitive match with McGinn would be a massive blow for Steve Clarke.Â
His goal in Vienna was the mark of someone very comfortable in international football- perhaps a Scotland player that will thrive on the world stage should Scotland find a way past Wales to reach Qatar.Â
One reporter at BBC Scotland thought differently, their chief sports writer no less. Rather than project forward where McGinn’s career could take him it was too good an opportunity for Tom English to miss as he returned to the subject that recently saw BBC bosses in England apologise for his Twitter behaviour.Â
Celtic should have broken the bank to land John McGinn. Money no object. I believe I’m on record to that effect ?
— Tom English (@TEnglishSport) March 29, 2022
Following the deletion of a tweet by BBC Scotland’s Chief Sports Writer on 5th March, we have published the following additional information and apology on the BBC’s Clarifications & Corrections page https://t.co/dXEahZ54ZY
— BBC Scotland Corp (@bbcscotcorp) March 11, 2022
Celtic and McGinn have both moved forward from 2018, unfortunately it seems that one of the top writers at BBC Scotland hasn’t quite shaken himself free of that summer.Â
McGinn has a possible World Cup Final appearance to look forward to, under new management Celtic have a very significant fixture list to look forward to in April. It seems that English has nothing to look forward to, looking back seems more comforting to him.Â
As usual you tweet before you think, I thought you would have learned by now, especially after you tweeted these comments about Virgil Van Dijk. pic.twitter.com/zIX2d7klLt
— Unprecedented Quadruple Treble Winners. (@anthony19641888) May 23, 2021
We should have signed John mcginn, excellent player, a joy to watch for Scotland. You forgot to mention we have Ukraine though, before we can think of Wales. Thank god it was only a friendly last night, as giving up a 2 goal lead, has plenty of food for thought.
The truth of the matter is we did not sign him you can blame Celtic,Lawel or whoever you want but at the end of the day if a player is good enough and really wants to go to Celtic he will go to them,I would not swap any of our first team midfielders for him get over it his boat has sailed.
Editor: When the manager is keen on you and the CEO thinks he can use you for playing at his petty games it is probably best to go elsewhere. Pistol Pete had Mulumbu lined up from Kilmarnock as a free agent, good for the Balance Sheet Bhoys.
Disagree with you there John, I’d have mcginn in a second in our midfield, full of dynamism, and a wand of a left peg, boys got the lot. Villa are building something decent there, but will be lucky to keep him, Taylor made for a man utd or something going forward. The boy did want to come, but we messed him about, that’s what happened.
McGinn is a quality player, but Celtic didn’t need him at the time. we had brown, McGregor & Rogicplaying at the top of their games. we also had Armstrong, Bitton, Ntcham& Kouassi centre midfield (the last two of those we had hopes for).
if we’d signed McGinn, Christie wouldn’t have got a chance, and IMO, we needed his type of player more at that time.
would love to have McGinn now….
Regarding Tom English, I grew op when the sportswriters of the day wre guys of the calibre of Hugh Tailor ,Jim Rodger and People of that ilk…Nowadays we have dross such as English.
Poor Tom is trying his tedious best to upset the Celtic and their support by the turgid old method of smearing his laxative induced diarrhoea all over social media just to crawl, creep and bootlick up to the Racist BBC.
He couldn’t lace Jim Spences boots – but he may well end up licking them.