Keith Wyness wants Celtic’s title stripped and handed to Hearts on a silver platter, while Martin O’Neill correctly calls the pitch invasion outrage ‘nonsense’…

Some peepul really do think we’ll just sit here and let them rewrite the script. Let’s get real here.

This morning, I should still be soaking in the afterglow of last Saturday, but here we are again.

A week on from Callum Osmand’s 98th minute goal that won us the title, and we’re still being told it didn’t really happen.

Or rather, that it didn’t really count.

Because some peepul in Scottish football – and the wider media circling above it – have decided the story isn’t five-in-a-row.

The story is the pitch invasion.

Let me be crystal clear before I go any further.

I said it last week, and I’ll say it again – the pitch invasion shouldn’t have happened.

It’s that simple.

Most Celtic fans I know hold their hands up to that, and we have done all week.

What we won’t do is sit on our hands while the Scottish football commentariat tries to rewrite what happened on the park.

And the latest entrant into that particular race to the bottom?

One Keith Wyness.

Who, you ask? Exactly.

Keith Wyness, for those of you not familiar, was the CEO at Aberdeen between 2000 and 2004.

He went on to do the same job at Everton and Aston Villa.

And now – wait for it – runs a “football consultancy advising elite clubs”.

Indeed.

This guy should be taken seriously.

Yeah, right.

This is the guy Football Insider have wheeled out to tell us how the title should be decided.

A man who hasn’t worked in Scottish football for over twenty years.

A man nobody in Scottish football has thought about for over twenty years.

But hey, what do I know?

Wyness spoke to Football Insider’s Inside Track podcast and dropped the following pearl of wisdom on us.

“There’s photographic evidence I’ve seen of Celtic players and substitutes running onto the pitch when the game is still being played, and before the ball was put in the net for the third goal. They were actually encroaching onto the pitch. All sorts of things can happen. My gut feeling is, having observed Scottish football and having been part of it for many years, the powers that be will cave in and give Celtic a big fine and a small suspended points deduction for next year. They’ll try and sweep it all under the carpet that way. What I’d rather see is if this game was abandoned, they would give the actual trophy to Hearts. This tries to put an end to fans coming onto the pitch in situations like that.”

Right.

His gut feeling.

I mean, where do I even start with this one?

‘Photographic evidence’ – give me a f*****g break.

So now there is photographic evidence of Celtic substitutes “encroaching” onto the pitch before Osmand’s third goal hit the net.

The horror.

A handful of subs, mid-celebration, in the 98th minute of the most dramatic final day in years, might have wandered a metre or two over the touchline.

And on the basis of this “evidence” – which our consultancy man has seen but the rest of us apparently haven’t – the title should be ripped off us and handed to Hearts??

Are we for real here??

Is this satire?

Make no mistake, this isn’t a serious football argument.

What’s worse is the headline used in the article relating to this:

SPFL to issue Celtic points deduction punishment as ‘photographic evidence’ emerges from scenes vs Hearts

This is disingenuous clickbait bollocks, and the statement reads like it has already been decided that this is going to happen.

All this is is Wyness trying to stay relevant by saying the most outrageous thing he can think of into a microphone.

Football Insider, of course, were only too happy to oblige.

Of course they were.

And the bit about giving the trophy to Hearts is the giveaway.

Let me get this straight.

The SPFL have already released a statement confirming the match was not abandoned.

Don Robertson blew the final whistle.

The result stood.

But Keith Wyness, from the comfort of his consultancy chair, has decided he knows better.

The cure for pitch invasions, apparently, is to strip a club of a title their players won on the park.

In what universe does that make sense??

Hearts had 38 games to win this title.

38 games.

They led the table from August until the 87th minute of the final day.

Hearts didn’t lose it because of a pitch invasion.

They didn’t lose it because of “skulduggery”.

They lost it because they weren’t good enough on the home straight.

Sad, but true.

Martin O’Neill, meanwhile, has done what Martin O’Neill always does – called it as it is.

The Hoops boss went on talkSPORT on Monday and branded the whole controversy “nonsense”.

Cue the outrage from Hearts.

Cue every pundit with a column to fill.

But the man doubled down.

On Celtic TV, O’Neill said this:

“There’s no question it’s been lost. Outside our supporters, outside us, outside the diaspora, everybody wanted Hearts to win. So there was just this… what shall I say… just an incredible anti-feeling about us winning it and so that didn’t become the story. The story became the fans coming onto the pitch to celebrate as if it’s never happened before and yeah and just downright skulduggery on our part to actually take the win away from Hearts.”

And he is absolutely right.

Because this is exactly what is happening, right in front of our eyes.

The achievement is being airbrushed out.

Five-in-a-row.

An interim manager dragged out of retirement at 74.

A side on the canvas in March.

Picking itself up to win the last 7 League games in a row.

The last 7.

In a row.

In its place, we get Keith Wyness and his “photographic evidence”, and Tony Bloom claiming “one or two” of his players were assaulted with not a shred of video footage to back it up.

A whole week on.

Not a single second of footage.

Not one.

Do you think if that footage existed we wouldn’t have seen it by now?

Funny that…

The narrative is being twisted in real time, and we’re supposed to just sit here and take it.

Well, no.

Pitch invasions are a problem, and Celtic will face some sort of sanction.

A fine.

Maybe a small suspended points deduction for next season.

That’s fair enough.

That’s what most of us expected.

But stripping the title??

Handing the trophy to Hearts because a man nobody has heard from in twenty years has seen a photograph of a substitute on the wrong side of a white line??

Bollocks.

All of it.

Total bollocks!

Mark my words, in twelve months’ time nobody outside Tynecastle will be talking about any of this.

What they’ll be talking about is the 98th minute goal.

The greatest final day comeback in living memory.

And the table.

82 points.

The table doesn’t lie.

And nobody, I mean nobody, will be able to take that away from us.

Not Keith Wyness.

Not Tony Bloom.

And certainly not Derek McInnes.

Not Football Insider.

Not a single one of them.

On Saturday, we go again at Hampden against Dunfermline.

One more for the old man on the touchline.

Lift that Cup, and let Keith Wyness write his next hot take from his consultancy chair while we celebrate.

One wonders what we’ll see from him next?

Or why he’ll be wanting us to be stripped of the Scottish Cup, if we manage to win it?

Encroachment from the Celtic players?

Over celebrating wildly will be unsportsmanlike because we’re the big boys?

Playing with a soft ball?

Who knows?

No doubt they’ll come up with some shite, though.

They always do.

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