Gannon and his Daily Record chum Ryan McDonald were among the four reporters out in Portugal given access to Martin O’Neill and his players by Communications Manager Iain Jamieson.
The relationship is easy to work out.
You get access to players and the manager to fill big spaces in your ailing rag, when we need a turn we know who to call in.
Using a favoured tactic the Record turned to their GREEDY BHOY template to justify Celtic missing out on Kelechi Iheanacho.
The striker that saved the season with three vital away goals at Dundee, Hibs and Motherwell in the title run in.
The striker that Celtic had an option to extend his contract by another season but chose not to. Preferring to offer him a lower contract in the hope that no-one else would come in. Nicholson learned his trade by shadowing Peter Lawwell.
Gannon happily ignored all that and Nicholson’s own confession that he can’t cope with football agents.
On Friday night with Nicholson under fire Gannon informed Record readers:
Celtic have missed out on bringing back Kelechi Iheanacho after refusing to match the striker’s eye-watering wage demands.
The Nigerian ace has signed for Turkish climbers Bursaspor on a bumper three-year deal despite an offer on the table to remain at Parkhead.
Record Sport understands the Hoops balked at Iheanacho looking for a blockbuster package of £50k per week – way beyond the top earners at the club.
The Hoops offered the Double winning hero a two-year contract despite allowing the automatic one-year extension option to expire at the end of June.
But the ambitious Turkish second-tier outfit – who won promotion last term – stepped in offering big dosh to bag the 29-year-old on a three-year deal.
Record Sports understands is the tell tale phrase.
Eye watering wage demands! Blockbuster package! Big Dosh! Bumper three year deal!
The language of the nineties. Back then the Record would use those phrases as they gave the inside track on Dave Murray’s latest signings.
Now Gannon uses them to justify the utter incompetence of Nicholson.
Back in November Gannon got the scoop that Celtic were in advanced talks to appoint Wilfried Nancy as manager.
He then embarked on three weeks of work trying to portray the seventh best coach in the MLS Eastern Conference as the next Pep. Nothing would be beyond Wilfried…
True, the useless Frenchman is in the history books.
Nicholson has been interviewed twice by Celtic TV, both times to drool over the brilliance of Wilfried Nancy. When it came to Nancy being introduced to the media Nicholson locked himself in the office with his phone switched off.
Gannon is the Record’s main Celtic reporter. He is such a big Celtic fan that in March of this year he recalled Neil Lennon telling him of Martin O’Neill’s inspirational words before the 6-2 Demolition Derby in 2000. Only problem was that Lenny was a Leicester player at the time.
Ask former charges such as Chris Suttonand Neil Lennon and they often talk about how O’Neill had his men like caged lions before they walked out at Celtic Park in the August sunshine 26 years ago.
In the January transfer window Celtic were strongly linked with winger Fares Ghedjemis of Frosinone.
Again Nicholson failed to deliver.
Again Gannon was chosen to excuse the multiple failings of the Celtic CEO.
He informed Record readers:
Reports in Italy suggested the Parkhead side were unwilling to meet the bumper asking price.
But Record Sport can reveal it was Ghedjemis who walked away from the deal – despite Celts having an offer of around £6m ACCEPTED.
Don’t you just love the combination of a bumper asking price followed by Record Sport can reveal.
Despite all of his stories defending Nicholson Gannon hasn’t came up with an exclusive Celtic signing this year.
The honour of the Camilo Duran exclusive fell to David Friel of The Sun.
As long as STs and merch are snapped up , nothing will change , desmond the boss calls the shots and nicholson his puppet carries them out. We can mank and moan about this board year after year and nothing has changed, the only way to make them sit up and take notice is a boycott of some games especially friendlies.
The board have got all their ST money in the bank now but vast empty swathes of seats would send a message that and the continuation of ” not another penny” the alternative is we do nothing and this board strips the team down to bare bones where each season we’ll be fighting with sevco and diets just to qualify for europa conference league, because they way our team is getting reduced in quality we can forget about Champions league and even the Europa league.
Jim Duffy, apparently we cannot expect fans to give up their ST, I have been pulled up a few times over it. It seems perfectly fine to give the board £30m+ before having a clue what team will take the field in the new season. And many ST holders then ask other fans to follow NAP, a little surreal really
The media are loving the mess these rats are making , it suits them fine , they’ll say nowt
Compare it to what they were writing about Thelwell when he was at the huns , they were hounding him
The writing was on the wall when they offered Maloney and Fotheringham reduced terms
a club like no other and not a fk will be given as the st money is in , rinse repeat and not give a fk