FORMER Rangers defender Gareth McAuley has taken a swipe at Celtic's recent title triumph saying it will always be "tainted and hollow".
The Hoops were last week awarded the the Scottish Premiership trophy after league bosses curtailed the 2019/20 season early due to the coronavirus crisis.
And despite Neil Lennon hailing Celtic's ninth league title in a row as the best under his management, ex-Northern Irish international McAuley believes Lenny's talk was all for show and he reckons the Celts are hurting deep down.
Speaking in the Sunday Life newspaper, McAuley said: “This triumph will always be tainted and hollow. They didn’t win the title on the pitch, they were handed it.
“I actually feel sorry for the Celtic players now.
“They have officially been crowned SPFL champions, but all their hard work, dedication and gutsy performances when they ground out results will be forgotten.
“In the record books there will always be an asterisk beside this season’s championship.
“I know Neil Lennon was on TV recently saying this title win was the greatest one under his management.
“But that was all for show and to wind up the Rangers fans watching at home.
“Deep down it will rankle him that his team weren’t able to secure the title on the pitch.
“Of course, it wasn’t their fault, the Covid-19 pandemic sadly intervened and football was cancelled.
“But as a result, history will not look too kindly on this Celtic nine in a row team and that will hurt the current crop of players.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article