Former Celtic striker Cascarino, who was a major Parkhead flop just like Barton was at Ibrox, has insisted that their success is only due to Rangers demise and isn’t much of an achievement given the superior resources available to Brendan Rodgers.
Writing a column for The Times in his second annihilation of Celtic, Cascarino believes the club have only managed the feat because rivals Rangers “are so weak” and have “Kenny Miller playing at 53 [years old]”.
Commons spent six-and-a-half seasons with Celtic and attributes the bitterness of Cascarino and Barton to the fact they were quickly laughed out of the Scottish game.
“Tony Cascarino and Joey Barton were absolute flops at Celtic and Rangers,” Commons told the Daily Mail. “And they seem to be bitter about how bad they were up here.
“I have read the much-debated comments from both of them about Scottish football over the past week or so. I found them remarkable. You can say these guys have played in the English Premier League, so they know football. And they know what people in England think about the Scottish game. That’s fine.
“But to be so disparaging? As I said, I think there is bitterness toward our game because they came north of the border and were disasters. It’s just noise put out to create an argument.”
OPINION
Cascarino is one of Celtic worst big-name signings of the last 30 years, but that does not mean his opinion is not valid or worthy. As a long-standing pundit, he is paid to give his views. The former striker is also long enough in the tooth to know that a backlash from Celtic fans and the Scottish football illuminati was inevitable. He knew he was being provocative, and that it would get a reaction. Nevertheless, Commons and company should not use Cascarino’s poor spell at the Hoops to beat him with. Instead, they should stress why precisely this Celtic side is so special.