FRANK MCAVENNIE is paid by Football Insider to be as controversial as possible when it comes to his Celtic opinions. There’s very little traction in it for FI and guys on their payroll to be positive.

The former Celtic star has been on the website over the past 24 hours having a go at Anthony Ralston for his performance at St Mirren – claiming the player has gone backwards.

I don’t mind criticism of players when it’s due and is constructive, but anyone having a go at Anthony Ralston after the first half of the season needs to wind their neck in.

Frank branded the player ‘hopeless’ against St Mirren as Celtic dropped points.

The game was frustrating but to point out Ralston’s performance is peculiar.

“I was at the St Mirren game and I thought, ‘Dear me he’s gone backwards’. McAvennie told FI.

“Oh my God, he was hopeless. He looked bit-part. Honestly, he was playing like he had just come off a building site.

“He was just crashing around into people. That’s the player I was always convinced wouldn’t make it.

“He looked great earlier this season, that’s why he got the Scotland call-up.

“But he hasn’t looked the same and I was so disappointed with him against St Mirren.

“I was disappointed with everyone if I’m honest but Ralston was really poor.”

Anthony went from having one foot and four toes our the door at Celtic Park to becoming a first team regular – proving a lot of people wrong – including me.

He deserves a lot of praise for his turn around and we all have our off games. Nobody covered themselves in glory in Paisley just before Christmas.

Frank, wind your neck in.

11 COMMENTS

  1. Just as well Frank never had a bad game in a Celtic shirt otherwise his opinion would mean nothing at all.Its funny how the older a player gets the less he remembers when he had a bad game

  2. Normally appreciate macca.s views, but Ralston deserves slack in light of fantastic application from him all season along with other remnants of Brendo n lenny.s regression, paisley was a nightmare, but not for singling out one player

  3. McAvennie – has a short memory. I can remember games where he was not even as good as hopeless. Everyone can have a poor game. Even Henryk had the odd one. Negativity is part of the psyche in Scotland. It is what brings us down.

  4. McAvennie is not controversial, to be so you need a level of intelligence, he is a dud. Should be renamed McAmouth or Gobshite. How any platform can waste money on this fool is beyond me. Send him back to the “burds” oh sorry, forgot they realised he was a dud years ago. Please don’t comment on him again he is best ignored.

  5. McAvennie joined Celtic circa October 1987 and after a dodgy beginning, started to some good in late November. He hit a rich vein of form until about April, ’88. After that, he went off the boil as Celtic marched towards the centenary double before putting in a good performance in the cup final versus Dundee United. He spent the following season, ’88-89 agitating for a move back to London. His form dipped, he was dropped, he was constantly in the papers criticising Billy McNeill and eventually got his move back to London halfway through the season while Celtic ended up winning the Scottish cup without him.

    By the time he rejoined the club in 1992, he’d been freed by West Ham, spent time stuck in the tundra of Aston Villa’s reserve team, wandered through Cliftonville and then Hong Kong before agreeing to sign for Partick Thistle at the age of 33. Celtic, by then in the darkest throes of the pre-Fergus McCann ’90s stepped in and snatched him away before he played for them and he had a good two-month spell as Celtic finished third (13 points behind treble-winners Rangers) and dumped out of the cup by Falkirk. An uninspiring year later he was freed by Lou Macari back into the wilderness of places like Swindon and Falkirk.

    My point is, McAvennie has put more effort into becoming a Celtic pundit than he ever did as a player. Six decent months doesn’t make you Jimmy McGrory or Henrik Larsson.

    • Spot on Jimbob?
      Loved playing with Jenny Bond more than he did with Celtic.

      PS,
      He was never a Celtic star, but only a Celtic player. MacAvennie was a decent player when he decided to show up, but he never done so often enough, nor did he play in the Hoops to be even considered a star. Many, many more players have donned the Hoops colours and are far more worthy of being credited of being called a Celtic Star…MacAvennie is not one of them.

      Simple truth is, he would’ve been forgotten about a long time ago if he hadn’t being getting laughed at in Only An Excuse. Was never in the show for his footballing abilities.

      Crawl back under your rock Frank, as not one Celtic Supporter could care less what you have to say, about Celtic or otherwise

  6. He was a electrician by trade, met him in Bucclech street Garnethill in 1989 working, as his career had dipped somewhat in a footballing sense. He could wire a two pin socket, and not much else. But he did don the Green and White Hoops with pride. When I met him he was a shadow of his former self. Being a sub at the Tennants sixes didn’t assist him much either.

Leave a Reply to No Angel Cancel reply

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.