Hugh Keevins: Happy Birthday Ronny

A happy birthday to Ronny Deila today as he turns forty years old. He must have had a hard paper round in Norway.

That is, of course, meant to be a joke and not a serious comment on the Celtic manager's looks.

The trouble is there is an element within the Celtic support who will not have a word said against Ronny. Not in jocular form, not in any kind of way.

No constructive criticism. No objectivity. Nothing other than slavish devotion to a protected species.

I was actually taken aback when a caller to Saturday night's Superscoreboard described me as being "Beneath contempt" because of what I had said about Celtic's stuttering start to the Premiership title race.

The immediate support of other callers to the programme and the avalanche of written backing on Twitter that came my way was gratefully received, but the words were still reverberating in my mind as I went to watch Celtic play Dundee on Sunday.

Sure enough, when the six goal demolition of a hapless visiting team was completed a Celtic supporter jumped to his feet and denounced me by saying "What crisis are you on about ?"

And the walk across the car park outside Celtic Park afterwards was interrupted by another Celtic fan who insisted that I must have been "Sick" after watching Deila's team return a stunning performance that subdued Dundee to the point of capitulation.

What are these people on about ?

The game was highly enjoyable and I can't recall suffering the symptoms of nausea at any point during the ninety minutes.

Nor do i have any recollection of ever saying that Celtic were in crisis.

What I have said is that any Celtic manager who fails to win a league title when that league does not contain Rangers as part of the opposition provides automatic grounds for dismissal.

Deila last week conceded that was the case when he said he would expect to be sacked if Aberdeen took the tile back from Celtic.

And he has added spice to every league game Celtic play by discussing the circumstances under which he could be removed from office.

Celtic were terrific against Dundee, and the appreciation of their performance was heightened by the realisation that the starting eleven did not contain eight players who cost the thick end of twelve million pounds to bring to the club.

Jozo Simunovic, Mikael Lustig, Scott Allan, Gary Mackay-Steven, Stuart Armstrong, Charlie Mulgrew, Stefan Johansen and Nadir Ciftci were all missing for one reason or another at kick-off time and that prompted one perfectly allowable observation.

If you can't win the league title with strength in depth like that, and that long list of absentees could soon be added to by former England international Carlton Cole if he opts to sign for Celtic, then you deserve to get the bullet.

Is that not simply a statement of fact, free of malice and merely expressing the bleeding obvious ?

Aberdeen have won eight games in a row and have the only flawless league record in the Premiership. They show no signs of going away and might, just might, threaten Ronny's job security.

Another caller to Superscoreboard last week accused me of "Explicit negativity" where Celtic were concerned. Run that past me again.

Reading out the black and white facts as shown on the league table is now explicit negativity, is it ?

The caller was from Holland and claimed he could sense while listening to the programme on-line that I was revelling in Celtic's points deficit.

Is it just me, or does that kind of thinking not sounded warped ?

Plain speaking has always characterised Scottish people as a race and this newly discovered sensitivity among those who object to calling a spade a spade is mystifying. Have another opinion for free to balance things up for those who are always on the look out for favouritism towards the other half of the Old Firm.

Rangers' manager Mark Warburton said on Saturday night that Dumbarton's Cheaper Insurance Direct Stadium was a hard place to go, as evidenced by his side's narrow 2 - 1 win there.

Nonsense.

It's the one stand home of a part-time team who won the first two games of the season and haven't won since. If Rangers hadn't won there it would have been laughable. Is that explicit negativity. Am I beneath contempt for the Rangers support for saying that ?

Or can we just get back to having an opinion and having the democratic right to express it within the limits allowed by law ?

Let's grow up, people.

Many happy returns Ronny.