Watch Simon Jordan laughing at Stats Man Souness

It isn’t just Phil Clement that has been a laughing stock over the last couple of days- Graeme Souness has had almost as bad a time of it as the Belgian Beale.

While Kris Boyd, Billy Dodds, Barry Ferguson and others watched the match on Sunday and were shocked and sickened by the clear gulf between the sides, from his base in the south of England Souness remains on an out of date message.

After trying to charm his way into a job at Ibrox the former Liverpool boss let the cat out of the bag when he revealed that his role in the recruitment of Micky Beale’s successor led him to conclude that Frank Lampard was a better prospect that Clement.

While Clement remains in place there is no direct paid role for Souness out of the 2012 Tribute Act but he has been a useful fool at trying to downplay the massive gap between the two clubs and their Starting XIs.

Monday’s appearance with Simon Jordan and Jim White was inevitably going to include some awkward moments, Jordan is far from a Celtic fan but the former Crystal Palace owner loves to see someone from inside the game making a complete fool of themselves on air.

It is debatable whether Souness bothered to watch the match, if he did he probably switched off soon after Jack Butland invited Kyogo Furuhashi to tuck away Celtic’s second goal shortly before half time.

Old school football folk like Souness are usually quick to dismiss stats based arguments- which are used exclusively by losers to justify their failings.

Everything needs to be taken in context, three of the shots from Clement’s side came with the score at 3-0, efforts from Ross McCausland and Hamza Igmane were blocked before Kasper Schmeichel saved from James Tavernier. Cyriel Dessers’ offside effort in the first half also seems to have climbed into the ‘shots on target’ category.

Kyogo’s 11th minute effort that was wrongly disallowed has been left out as has the first half sitter from Reo Hatate and Kyogo’s attempted chip in the second half that hit the side net.

There are signs that some Ibrox fans and pundits are recognising the state that their club is in on and off the park but it is comforting that a high profile figure like Souness thinks that there is little between the two clubs and that someone throwing £50m at Clement will instantly turn things around.

The only certainty is that characters like Souness and Ally McCoist wouldn’t dream of putting their own money into the Tribute Act with their transactions being one way only.