Bill Leckie has performed a brutal hatchet job on Celtic’s Champions League performance.
Jumping in with the heavy boots on the Sun reported seemed to revel in last night’s draw, confirming his views against the paranoid propaganda that Celtic have performed pretty well over five matches but had been caught a little short.
Many issues in football are decided by fine margins although Ukraine’s victory over Scotland at Hampden in June was more of a trouncing. It is not fine margins that see a nation fail to qualify for six consecutive World Cup Finals.
Two years ago Celtic were being beaten 4-1 home and away by Sparta Prague. Last summer Ange Postecoglou inherited Callum McGregor, revived Greg Taylor and Tony Ralston and has slowly nursed James Forrest back to something like his old self.
From that base to create more than 10 chances per match in the Champions League is no mean feat, one that more than 90% of Celtic fans recognise and appreciate.
Leckie views it from a very different perspective, explaining to readers of The Sun:
But let’s be honest. Scotland’s champions were in the position of desperately chasing their tails last night not because of bad luck, but because they hadn’t been nearly good enough in the four previous ties.
There’s a narrative doing the rounds that a couple of kicks here and there might have made all the difference – Callum McGregor hitting the post at 0-0 at home to Real Madrid, Daizen Maeda and Giorgos Giakoumakis missing chances late on away to Shakhtar – but that’s not so much a positive spin as paranoid propaganda.
Later on he added:
Matt O’Riley’s radar was miles off beam in those early stages. The first anyone would see of Reo Hatate’s quick feet were when he stumbled jogging up the tunnel at half-time and had to pull some nifty moves to stop himself hitting the deck. Kyogo and Giakoumakis looked like exactly what thy are – a partnership who’d only ever started one game together before now.
Liel Abada couldn’t get into the game, Sead Haksabanovic grafted up and down the left without any real end product – and as for Moritz Jenz, he continued to step out from the back like Virgil Van Dijk before using the ball like Dick Van Dyke.
But as everyone from their gaffer down to the tealady never stops telling us, they never stop. They believe in what they do, in how they want to play, no matter how iffily they might be executing the plan – and finally, 12 minutes from the break, they got their reward thanks to one of their most tried and trusted ploys.
Why do you give this hun fanny publicity?
If it’s just to get clicks then that is poor.
I clicked on this article expecting some kind of demolition job on him but no, and the last bit doesn’t even make any sense, ie. what “ploy” was he referring to?
The worst sports media in the world. Scotlands sevco media shame.
“Iffily”?!
You have to disable spellcheck just to type that.
Reminds me of Alex Cameron, a sportswriter memorably described by one fanzine as ‘less a journalist and more a slum wordsmith’.
Leckie hates us,and never,ever wastes an opportunity to put the boot in.He calls us and sevco “the bigot brothers”as a flag of convenience.He constantly had a go at IRA chanting and as disagreeable to some as that may be,it’s not sectarian.Singling out one section of the community for their religious beliefs is.He never praises the charity work done by our fans.A nasty sarcastic spiteful loser.
First time in ucl forAnge and the team, then you get this arse giving his tuppence worth that none of us gives a f ??? about put an F in where the L is in his surname
Wee Billy Leckie has been employed by the Scottish Sun haemorrhoid ,sorry , tabloid newspaper for years ! He was previously employed by the Daily Record . Can you see the common thread there ? Anyone who is associated with either toilet roll outlets ,has no right whatsoever to criticise Celtic FC like he has . This is a Charlatan scoop reporter who declares he is a St Mirren fan ,when everybody knows where his true allegiances lie . He is living proof of the sub standard quality and talent being punted as journalists in this country ,today ! There will be no lectures from Billy Leckie .
Leckie worst kind of hun! He thinks be saying the ” o f” means he hates us both we all know that old bs! I destroyed him on a phone in show years back left him without a leg to stand on basically he tries the old usual ” you as bad as each other” nonsense the man a cretin and bit of a weirdo to boot
To be honest the pryck is best ignored along with that old has never been Keevins. Sevco will end up with the worst group performance in CL history but it will be dressed up as unlucky because of their group and injuries.I don’t care so much about Europe as long as we keep the Huns chasing us and we qualify for group stages as we can never truly compete against teams with those levels of resources. The main criticism I have is we seem to be losing the same type of goals. I feel we over-commit and when the really good teams break we struggle.
He’s an arse so he is the past few months he can’t wait to tear into Celtic or their fans showing his true colours. He’s better sticking to his views in politics or whatever other shite he writes about because his biased columns on Celtic just unjust and nonsense. He’s a muppet.