There is no zealot like a convert, is there?
And having spent the better part of last season slamming Celtic and Rodgers, Hugh Keevins, thoroughly humiliated by the staggering collapse of his latest Ibrox managerial pin-up, has gone all-in trying to suck up with the triumphant Parkhead regime. Suddenly, he’s Rodgers biggest fan, defending him from the critics.
Still, I found his article today absolutely fascinating for a number of reasons.
First, he’s said that he’s heard Celtic have already completed a number of signings but that for reasons passing understand we’ve not bothered to announce that yet. If you want to burst out laughing at that you should, because it’s as ridiculous as it sounds. I would be astonished if he has any direct information about stuff happening inside Celtic, and that we would have made signings and be keeping them quiet makes no sense whatsoever.
Secondly, his turning on Clement is utterly shameless and as much a product of his own embarrassment as anything else. I’ve written this before here; every manager at Ibrox is a hero until two things happen. First is that the hacks who had slabbered all over him realise they’ve been made to look like mugs and second he morphs into an obvious liability.
The initial burst of anger is always self-centred and self-serving, and self-serving is practically Keevins’ default anyway. His gushing fan-boy raving about Van Bronckhorst was followed by a dose of the same for Michael Beale and suddenly it was Clement who was adorning his wall like he was some teenager with a crush on a pop star.
His writing on Van Bronckhorst and Clement in particular has been toe-curling. He used virtually the same language on both of them – words like “cultured” and “sophisticated”; I remember one guy who ticked both of those boxes, and Keevins scorned him at every turn, although he was those things in spades and an incredibly decent man as well; his name was Dr Jo Venglos.
I bet he knows the sum total of nil about either Van Bronckhorst or Clement, but there is something about a certain type of European by whom he is very easily impressed. To put it bluntly, I have never known a hack more susceptible to seduction by a well-tailored suit and accented broken English. If you could fake a foreign accent this guy would fall all over you.
He probably thinks that his piece this morning contained some blinding insight into the Ibrox transfer policy. It didn’t. I wrote a piece on this last week and others have said pretty much the same thing; they are signing “project players” at a time when they are likely to be facing a Brendan Rodgers team which will take the opposite path … and Keevins thinks this is folly, and for once he’s got it right. This explains why he is now firmly positioned in the “Oh Brendan” camp.
It is sickening. It is pathetic. We are watching this guy pledge himself as an ally when we know – when we all remember – that not long ago he was anything but. There is nothing more pitiful or hard to stomach than this sort of shady opportunism and base treachery. This man may smile and smile, but we know he’s a villain. I don’t trust a word of it.
Neither will Brendan Rodgers or anyone else at Celtic Park.
