Sarcy Sutton calls out trash talking Todd Cantwell

Chris Sutton has observed a fairly new trait after more than 20 years of being involved in and watching football in Glasgow.

When he arrived at Celtic in July 2000 Martin O’Neill found it almost impossible to get through a media conference without mentioning the benchmark set across the city by Dick Advocaat and his squad who had picked up five of the last six trophies on offer.

That message was picked up by his players, whenever pushed they played down any minor achievements, pushing the focus across the city as Barry Ferguson, Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Lorenzo Amoruso were held up as the standard bearers.

O’Neill almost certainly delivered a different message in private, the first time he got to take on Advocaat’s side they were destroyed 6-2 but with no trophies won by that side till March 2001 there was no public bragging or talking down of their only realistic trophy rivals.

Which contrasts greatly with the current situation. Todd Cantwell joined the cast list over the weekend with comments that seem to date back to Joey Barton as new arrivals at Ibrox talk big then appear to go into hiding when the action begins on the pitch.

Reflecting on their off pitch claims Sutton tells Daily Record readers:

It was a bit confusing at the weekend seeing all the celebrations at the weekend at Parkhead considering Celtic didn’t win.

Well, that’s what Todd Cantwell said, and who are we to argue with him? He said Celtic didn’t win, it was Rangers who lost. So by that logic, Celtic won’t win the league, Rangers will lose it? I’m not sure that’s how football works. There are winners and losers – and it’s clear who’s who in Glasgow at the moment.

It just baffles me about the rhetoric from Rangers after these games as it’s the same all the time. After the Ibrox game in January it was, ‘we’ll see the real Rangers at Hampden’. They lose that one and it was ‘it’ll be different at Celtic Park’. Now it’s ‘we showed we can win at Hampden again’, ‘next year we’ll be a real force’ etc, etc.

It’s just the same old story. The way they’ve reacted to Saturday you’d think they had won the match. Listen, there are no moral victories in this fixture. And Cantwell coming out and saying Celtic didn’t win it, is just back in Fashion Sakala territory. If you are in that Celtic dressing room, you’d stick that away and remember it for cup week.

Cantwell didn’t make much of an impression on the match on Saturday, he would have been best keeping his head down. I understand Michael Beale and James Tavernier have to sell some kind of story. 

In less than three weeks Cantwell will get his third chance to deliver something on the pitch against Celtic.