BBC Sport - SPL Reconstruction

Still needs an 11-1 vote so by no means certain to be adopted. Think it sounds pretty positive and could work well, not too excited by the 10 team side of thing but realistically it doesn't change that much from a footballing perspective.

For me the biggest problem for Scottish football just now is still our mentality. This attitude some people have of "win at all costs" and worst of all "don't get beat" is something that has slowly ruined and continues to ruin the game here. Spain used to have a similar way of playing but through time, especially with the reformation from people like Cruyff they got rid of the "don't get beat" mentality to playing football in a way that was indeed, playing football. And where are Spain now? Of course I'm not saying that if Scotland changed it's mentality that they'd become world champions but I feel that there's some problem when the manager of the national team sees no problem with playing with no strikers against a rather mediocre opponent such as the Czech Republic. And with that mentality we won't be seeing Scotland at a World Cup for quite a long time.

There's a saying in the Latin countries that in Britain you teach players to win by any means, while elsewhere they teach how to play the game, and winning comes later. That's the mentality we should have. Was it not Mourinho of all people who said that when you are not afraid to lose you have more chances to win? I'm quite glad to also say that ICT are a side who try and win every game and not try not to lose, even against the bigger clubs. That's almost certainly one of the reasons that the club was promoted last season and are still on such a good run (it's also interesting to note, that Brewster's "don't get beat" attitude is essentially what the relegated the club in the first place). A 10 team SPL will do nothing to help the standard of football in this country, if anything it'll more likely make it worse. A bigger SPL is the way forward, where young players can grow, teams can not be afraid to have a go and the standard of Scottish football can get back to a decent level again.