Craig Bellamy upset a number of Celtic fans on Thursday morning as Paddy Power published an article where the Welsh striker gave his honest opinion that nobody outside of Scotland cares about the success of the Parkhead club.
Bellamy scored 7 goals in 12 appearances during a successful spell up north, but rather than reflect on his time in Glasgow in a positive light he appears to believe it was a bit of a waste of time.
After stating that Celtic's treble last season was "not fair" and "not real" due to the fact that Rangers are not what they once were, Bellamy claimed that Brendan Rodgers will have not enhanced his reputation on the back of last season's performance because nobody in England cares.
Brendan Rodgers couldn’t have done any more than he did with Celtic last season. His reputation of a great coach is there, but getting one of the top jobs again in the Premier League might be difficult for him.
Mainly because, and I found this out during my time in Scotland, it doesn’t matter what you do up there – no one cares. I had more offers in January, before I went to Celtic, than I did when I finished my time up there the following summer.
That’s because once you went up to Scotland nobody in England gave a damn what you did up there. If you do well up there, it’s a case of ‘so you should’. I just didn’t feel it mattered to anyone down south.
It's blunt, and also harsh on what Rodgers achieved with the club last year. The loss to Gibraltar's Red Imps in the early rounds of the Champions League suggested that the Antrim man had a huge task on his hands, and if you had said then that those players would go on to win a domestic treble, you would have been scoffed at.
Chris Sutton certainly didn't agree with Bellamy's comments and labelled them as 'rubbish' to his Twitter followers.
Craig Bellamy is talking a load of rubbish here..... https://t.co/MdjFxgjFtu
— Chris Sutton (@chris_sutton73) September 21, 2017
Former Celtic man Craig Burley also disagreed with Bellamy's comments while on ESPN later in the day as he claimed that while it's obvious that most English football fans don't care about Scottish football, he believed that Rodgers had indeed enhanced his reputation with all of the success of last season.
Sutton and Bellamy even played together up front for Celtic, so it's interesting to see him challenge his former strike-partner for giving his take, but then again, Chris Sutton is rare to pull someone up if he's not entirely convinced.
You can read Bellamy's piece on Celtic in full over on Paddy Power.
