IT’S been a strong start to the campaign for Stockport County.
Dave Challinor’s men, based at the 18,000 Edgeley Park, have won eight of their 15 league matches to date to sit one point clear at the top of the English third tier.
But they found their exploits catapulted into an altogether different argument yesterday, when former Spurs star turned TV and radio pundit Jamie O’Hara claimed that they would be strong enough to win the Scottish Premiership this season.
Alas, we’ll never know whether that is true or not – but the reaction among fans and followers of our game has been strong to say the least.
Strong enough, in fact, for the broadcaster – who of course cover Scottish Premiership games LIVE – to decide to quietly take the clip down from their social media platforms.
Celtic podcaster Paul John Dykes, sharing a platform with O’Hara, was quick to deride his claim as “nonsense” and there was near unanimity across the Scottish game on the subject.
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The clip from Sky Sports News’ daytime programming – which obviously originated in London – shows O’Hara saying: “You can’t get away from the fact that you’re the 39th league in the world [in fact, 36th best in coefficient points in Europe], which is pretty shocking, and you’re trying to say that you’re massive.
“Celtic are a big club, of course they are, I’m not trying to say that they’re not.
“But Stockport County are top of league one, they would go and win the Scottish Premiership this season.”
At this point, Dykes replies simply: “Nonsense.”
But O’Hara responds: “They would, they would win your league.”
The topic came about after O’Hara cast aspersions about the size of Celtic of a club – because they are chasing a new manager from the MLS.
We told you earlier in the week how Wilfried Nancy of Columbus Crew had emerged as the frontrunner for the job – with the man himself refusing to rule that out.
And that was further ammunition for O’Hara, who said: “You say it’s a massive draw, the shortlist has come up.
“I mean, you get custard pie’d by managers who don’t want the job. Knutsen, Kieran McKenna. You’re saying it’s a massive club, it isn’t, and it’s shown.
“You’re looking at a manager from the MLS. You can’t tell me you’re a big club if you’re looking at a manager from the MLS.
“You can’t say you’re one of the biggest clubs in the world then, if you’re saying that the manager comes there and it’s a pathway to a bigger job.”
One fan wrote: “Celtic and rangers rejects strolled league 1 with Birmingham. Never a decent word to say about Scottish football O’Hara.”
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Another said: “The whole segment was a shambles from start to finish. O’Hara’s ‘Stockport would win the Premiership’ line wasn’t analysis – it was cheap shock-value punditry.”
A third wrote: “Wild that Sky sports, who have the broadcast rights to Scottish football allow their staff to literally go on this show to tell everyone how c*** it is.”
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