Today, in an effort to justify its paywall, the Daily Record is spinning a story about Roberto Martinez and Celtic.

Everyone should ignore it.

There is nothing there. There is no link to Celtic nor any substance in the story itself. The entire piece exists because Maloney once worked with Martinez and Celtic are looking for a manager. That is the level of the connection.

The story itself is deliberately vague, because it has to be.

There are no facts to anchor it. The entire premise rests on the idea that Martinez might have an opportunity to take a club job this summer, because Jose Mourinho might leave his current role for the Portuguese national team.

That gives you two maybes.

Somehow, two maybes become a headline about Celtic.

Two plus two equals five.

However, subscriptions do not sell themselves. This is the gambit.

This is the latest attempt to create content that looks important enough to sit behind a paywall.

I wrote about this last night. The idea that anyone should pay money to read material like this is an insult to readers’ intelligence.

The same approach appears elsewhere on their site. The ticket allocation story for Ibrox...