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  1. hislopsoffsideagain
    PREDICTED LEAGUE POSITION: FIFTH

    LAST SEASON: 6th, 51pts

    NOTABLE INS: Craig Halkett (Livingston), Steven Naismith (Norwich City, loan made permanent), Jamie Walker (Wigan Athletic), Conor Washington (Sheffield United)

    NOTABLE OUTS: Arnaud Djoum (Al-Raed), Ryan Edwards (Burton Albion), Marcus Godinho (FSV Zwickau), Conor Sammon (Falkirk), David Vanecek (Puskas Akademia), Daniel Baur (Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic, loan), Alex Petkov (Clyde, loan), Demi Mitchell (Manchester United, end of loan), Conor Shaughnessy (Leeds United, end of loan), Aaron Hughes (retired), Maluary Martin

    LAST SEASON'S BEST XI (Departed players crossed out): Zlamal, M.Smith, Souttar, Berra, Mitchell, Clare, Djoum, Haring, Mulraney, Naismith, Ikpeazu


    It's easy to forget that at the end of October 2018 Hearts were top of the league. They had twenty-six points, four more than Celtic (who had a game in hand). That was one more point than they scored in the remaining twenty-seven league games. They won only twice after the first day of February.

    That's not a small sample size. It's certainly large enough to put a manager in trouble. Craig Levein's saving grace was a run to the Scottish Cup Final...though he was fortunate to avoid Premiership opposition until the showpiece itself. Then the Jambos surprised many by giving Celtic a proper fight before succumbing 2-1. Was that a blip, or a sign of what Hearts are truly capable of?

    The late autumn collapse coincided with a spate of injuries that left the team often looking leaderless. Christophe Berra and Steven Naismith may be past their best but their experience was crucial. When both went down, no-one filled the gap. The loss of John Souttar and Uche Ikpeazu for long periods was also crucial. But that excuse doesn't wash for their torrid League Cup performances, where the Jambos toiled against Stenhousemuir and East Fife and supporters started to make their exasperation clear.

    It's not like Levein had a small squad. He filled gaps not with the talented youngsters that have been knocking on the first team's door but with other signings. Too many of these didn't look up to it. Perhaps the manager has learned his lesson, letting several players go this summer and adding only three. Expect left-back Aaron Hickey - who impressed after his unexpected Hampden start - midfielder Harry Cochrane and skilful wideman Anthony McDonald to see a lot more action this year.

    Naismith is back to guide them; his permanent move was delayed till the start of August because he would have forfeited a month's salary at his former club if he signed with someone else sooner than that. His nous and leadership are critical. He also seems to bring the best out of Ikpeazu, who at his best is astonishingly strong, as good with his back to goal as anyone in this league since Chris Sutton and with a decent turn of pace too. His form in July was honking though and even at his best he did only score eight goals last time out. Hearts need him to make double figures this campaign and damage plenty of opposing defenders in the process.

    There's still canny veteran Steven Maclean, and one of the new boys is Northern Irish international striker Conor Washington, a busy player who has spent most of the last four years coming off English Championship benches. That's decent depth, so much so that another decent young player, Aidan Keena, will surely be loaned out again.

    Crucially, the club also brought back Jamie Walker. Often Levein was criticized for playing hoofball, which was harsh mainly because it wasn't that Hearts always looked to go long, just that too often they only looked dangerous when they did so. Expect Walker's presence to alter that. The midfielder is expert at finding space between the lines, a skill that the squad lacked as a whole last season. Having him and Naismith playing off Ikpeazu should in theory work really well.

    Central midfield is more of an issue with Arnaud Djoum having moved on and Peter Haring struggling with a chronic pelvic injury. The attack-minded Sean Clare has played in a deeper role in the League Cup games but doesn't do the defensive side well enough . In addition to Cochrane, Andy Irving is another young player fighting for a place in the team, while amongst the older players Olly Lee has been told he can go and Oliver Bozanic failed to impress last season. If there is to be another new signing, it'll be in this area.

    There has already been one in the centre of defence where Craig Halkett, who shone for Livingston last season, will hopefully inherit Berra's mantle; the skipper too often runs out of legs in the second half these days and a partnership of Halkett and Souttar is likely going forward. Berra could always be deployed in a back three; Levein has plenty of options available in wide areas if he wishes to to play with wing-backs or a back four. 

    Hickey, still only 17, will compete with another teenager, Bobby Burns, and newcomer Aidy White for the left-back slot. Flying winger Jake Mulraney was one of the few squad members to enhance his reputation after Christmas and could also be used as a wing-back. Fellow widemen Dario Zanatta and Anthony McDonald impressed in Championship loans last season and could make the step up. Michael Smith could be right-back, right wing-back, on the right of a back three or a solid defensive midfielder. Callumn Morrison played right wing-back for much of last season too. The question is whether this is a case of quantity over quality, and whether Levein - and the Hearts fans - have enough patience to stick with the youths.

    The ingredients appear to be there though. And it shouldn't take a gourmet chef to cook up something decent. Too often last year Hearts served up mediocre fare. If they can't make the step up to haut cuisine then Levein will be back under pressure very quickly.


    THE SQUAD (players born after 1 January 1998 in italics)
    Goalkeepers: Colin Doyle, Kevin Silva, Zdenek Zlamal
    Defenders: Christophe Berra, Jamie Brandon, Bobby Burns, Clevid Dikamona, Ben Garuccio, Craig Halkett, Chris Hamilton, Aaron Hickey, Cammy Logan, Michael Smith, John Souttar, Aidy White
    Midfielders: Oliver Bozanic, Sean Clare, Harry Cochrane, Peter Haring, Andy Irving, Olly Lee, Anthony McDonald, Lewis Moore, Callumn Morrison, Jake Mulraney, Connor Smith, Jamie Walker, Craig Wighton, Dario Zanatta
    Forwards: Rory Currie, Ewan Henderson, Uche Ikpeazu, Aidan Keena, Steven Maclean, Leeroy Makovora, Steven Naismith, Connor Washington

    THE BEST XI?

     

    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.
    View the full article
  2. hislopsoffsideagain
    PREDICTED LEAGUE POSITION: THIRD

    LAST SEASON: 4th, 67pts

    NOTABLE INS: Funso Ojo (Scunthorpe United, £125k), Luc Bollan (Dundee United), Craig Bryson (Derby County), Ryan Hedges (Barnsley), Curtis Main (Motherwell), Michael Ruth (Queen's Park), Ash Taylor (Northampton Town), James Wilson (Manchester United, loan made permanent), Jon Gallagher (Atlanta United, loan), Greg Leigh (NAC Breda, loan)

    NOTABLE OUTS: Gary Mackay-Steven (New York City), Mark Reynolds (Dundee United, loan made permanent), Graeme Shinnie (Derby County), Dominic Ball (Rotherham United, end of loan), Tommie Hoban (Watford, end of loan), Max Lowe (Derby County, end of loan), Greg Stewart (Birmingham City, end of loan), Greg Halford

    LAST SEASON'S BEST XI (Departed players crossed out): Lewis, Logan, McKenna, Devlin, Lowe, Mackay-Steven, Shinnie, Ferguson, McGinn, May, Cosgrove



    How big a deal is it that Derek McInnes signed a new contract this summer? After all, it won't stop him leaving if another club offer sufficient compensation. But he could have hedged his bets and let it run down. But six years into his tenure, he has chosen to commit himself to the club going forward. 

    It's a huge boost to the club because the Dons' squad appears to be going through something of a rebuild. It feels like a long time since the 2017 Scottish Cup Final, where an Aberdeen side containing Graeme Shinnie, Ryan Jack, Jonny Hayes and Kenny McLean went toe-to-toe with Brendan Rodgers' Invincibles. Club captain and Duracell bunny Shinnie became the last of that quartet to depart at the end of last season. Gary Mackay-Steven has decided to take his chances in the USA. Max Lowe has proven an all-to-brief answer to the club's longstanding question at left-back - if anything, Clive, he was too good, so Derby County wanted him back.

    After slipping to fourth last season, following four straight second place finishes, could it be that Aberdeen cracked their heads off the glass ceiling and are on their way down again? It seems McInnes thinks not. With the new stadium at Kingsford due to open in 2021, and the decision to become a PLC to attract further investment, perhaps he has reason to believe that the Dons are going places.

    In the meantime, he still has the third biggest wage budget in the country to work with, a budget that has allowed him to entice Craig Bryson back north and to keep James Wilson. The latter will have taken a massive wage cut from the thirty grand a week he was making at Manchester United but will still surely be on a decent wad. The thing is, he was an overwhelming disappointment during his loan spell last season, managing just four goals and often looking disinterested. Retaining him looks like a considerable leap of faith by McInnes, especially since Sam Cosgrove has proven himself a consistent goalscorer and a very capable loan striker.


    He has also ventured back into the left-back loan market and come up with former Manchester City youngster Greg Leigh, while out wide a lot he has taken three throws of the dice at replacing Mackay-Steven; Scott Wright returns from a loan at Dundee where he showed flashes, while Welsh international winger Ryan Hedges has arrived from Barnsley and most curiously Jon Gallagher, an Irishman playing in the USA, has arrived on loan. Gallagher looks raw as heck but has pace to burn. Signs from the European games are that two of these three will do fine interchanging with Niall McGinn as part of the '3' in a 4-2-3-1.

    At the other end they look pretty set. Joe Lewis seems to have decided to spend the rest of his career in the North-East after signing a new contract. Shay Logan was a bit below his usual high standards last season but remains one of the better right-backs in the country. It's only a matter of time till Scott McKenna goes on to bigger things but until then they have excellent quality and quantity at centre-back, especially if Michael Devlin can stay fit. Otherwise Ash Taylor has returned after two years back in England and Andrew Considine is reliable enough. 

    The loss of Shinnie is a blow but rather than try and find a like-for-like replacement. McInnes instead landed Funso Ojo, who is more of a typical holding player. This may be no bad thing as the large spaces between Aberdeen's defence and midfield have been an obvious weakness for years. And Lewis Ferguson looks more than ready to take on Shinnie's mantle. The ex-Accie doesn't turn 20 till August but the £240,000 fee the tribunal set for him last summer looks like robbery. There's also Bryson who will be on a decent wage but who may actually find it tough to break into this side.

    Ferguson isn't the only youngster who the Dons have high hopes for. Connor McLennan looked great on the flanks when given his chance last season, while Bruce Anderson showed signs that he could be a capable striker. Anderson will have to wait his turn though behind Cosgrove, Wilson and new signing Curtis Main and may go out on loan again. Stevie May, meanwhile, will be on his way.

    Time will tell if the Dons are weaker than they were last season but third place looks like a very achievable target. Frustratingly for the support, the gap to Rangers looks insurmountable, whereas the difference between the Dons and the likes of the Edinburgh clubs - and of course Kilmarnock if their new boss picks up where the old one left off - is not that great at all. McInnes' remit for now is surely to make them the third best club in the country for the next couple of years...and then hope the Kingsford move can spark something special.


    THE SQUAD (players born after 1 January 1998 in italics)
    Goalkeepers: Tomas Cerny, Joe Lewis, Danny Rogers
    Defenders: Luc Bollan, Andrew Considine, Michael Devlin, Jon Gallagher, Greg Leigh, Shay Logan, Scott McKenna, Ash Taylor
    Midfielders: Craig Bryson, Dean Campbell, Lewis Ferguson, Stephen Gleeson, Ryan Hedges, Funso Ojo, Ethan Ross, Miko Virtanen
    Forwards: Bruce Anderson, Sam Cosgrove, Curtis Main, Stevie May, Niall McGinn, Connor McLennan, Michael Ruth, James Wilson, Scott Wright

    THE BEST XI?

     

    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.
    View the full article
  3. hislopsoffsideagain
    PREDICTED LEAGUE POSITION: EIGHTH

    LAST SEASON: 7th, 52pts

    NOTABLE INS: Wallace Duffy (Celtic), Elliot Parish (Dundee), Max Johnstone (Sunderland), Madis Vihmann (Flora, loan)

    NOTABLE OUTS: Blair Alston (Hamilton Academical), Aaron Comrie (Dunfermline Athletic), Brian Easton (Hamilton Academical), Joe Shaughnessy (Southend United), Tony Watt (CSKA Sofia), Olly Hamilton (Brechin City, loan), John Robertson (Cove Rangers, loan), Cammy Bell (Partick Thistle, end of loan), Sean Goss (Queens Park Rangers, end of loan), Niall Keown (Partick Thistle, end of loan), Mark Hurst

    LAST SEASON'S BEST XI (Departed players crossed out): Clark, Foster, Shaughnessy, Kerr, Tanser, Craig, Davidson, O'Halloran, Kennedy, Wright, Watt


    As the saying goes, "all good things..." Are we reaching that point in Perth?

    Between 2011 and 2017 St Johnstone were fixtures in the top six, with a Scottish Cup triumph thrown in. They came seventh last year, and eighth the season before that. However it seemed like the club were going through a transition period with a lot of older players needing replaced. Unquestionably they deserved that benefit of the doubt. And manager Tommy Wright said all the right things about feeling reinvigorated and, more importantly, looked like he meant them.

    And yet for the first time since they returned to the top flight in 2009 there is concern at McDiarmid Park. Not a Blackadder "twelve-storey crisis with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeting throughout, 24-hour portage, and an enormous sign on the roof, saying 'This Is a Large Crisis'". But its certainly a wee bit of a crisis.

    St. Johnstone just don't lose League Cup games to the likes of Montrose. Nor do they collapse at home to the likes of Ross County as soon as they concede a goal. Worryingly this is an ongoing trend since January. They won just four of their last eighteen games of 2018-19, and three of those wins were against either St. Mirren or Dundee. At one end of the pitch they struggled to score, and at the other they conceded the sort of cheap, stupid goals that they never let in when they were a top six side.

    Let's deal with the attack - or lack of it - first. Tony Watt got a lot of plaudits at the start of last season - he was Player of the Month for August - but even when he was playing well he wasn't scoring, and his form dropped off a cliff. At the moment the options at centre forward are David McMillan (loaned to Hamilton last season and unwanted by the club), Callum Hendry (young and raw, if we're being generous) and Chris Kane (who finally got a run of games at the end of the season, and proved why he shouldn't get a run of games). That trio and Watt managed just ten league goals between them. The club's top league scorer was Matthew Kennedy, with just six.

    The return of prodigal son Stevie May would have given the place such an enormous lift. The shock last-minute collapse of the transfer threatens to do the exact opposite. There's still time to find a striker, but it is slowly running out and in the meantime the fugue could increase further.

    Even in the successful times Wright often needed the midfield to provide goals and that dependence isn't ending any time soon. Kennedy's superb wing play is cause for optimism at least. Michael O'Halloran looked rusty as heck after returning in January but improved by the split and will hopefully be back to his hard-running best after a full preseason. It's easy to forget Drey Wright was the club's best player early last season until he wrecked his knee, though it may be too much to expect him to return to that form in the near future when he returns imminently from that injury. And Danny Swanson will still provide a spark off the bench, since it turns out his upcoming move to the USA was apparently just a ruse to try and avoid a conviction for assault (!).

    Defensively, the problem at the moment is numbers. Whilst goalkeeper Zander Clark and central defender Jason Kerr are top-rate - and should both go onto better things soon enough - the rest of the backline looks dicey. Richard Foster still looked up to it last season but at 34 they'll do well to get a full season out of him; however new signing Wallace Duffy is young and inexperienced and one for the future rather than the present. Scott Tanser is good going forward but has some shockers defensively. With Brian Easton gone there is no competition for him though.

    As for centre-back, the departure of Joe Shaughnessy has left a big hole. Relying on Liam Gordon or the increasingly decrepid Steven Anderson to fill it looked very risky. Estonian behemoth Madis Vihmann has arrived on loan and will surely be first choice alongside Kerr, but he needs to bed in very quickly. To be honest they could probably do with another defender or two. 

    Not all is necessary well in midfield either. Liam Craig had a bit of an indian summer last year but he will be 33 in December. Murray Davidson's history of injuries makes him a very old 31. Ross Callachan works hard but isn't someone to build the midfield around. However, when Wright tried to introduce a playmaker, Sean Goss, to the team last January it was a spectacular failure. He basically needs to find younger versions of Craig and Davidson. The manager has talked up Kyle McClean and Ali McCann but it would be a surprise if they managed to make the step up.

    So the situation looks grimmer than it has done for sometime. Some folk have even talked of them as relegation candidates, which has been met with a guffaw from most. That's probably still the appropriate reaction, if only because there are still clubs in this division who look rather weaker and rather more of a shambles. At the very least though the concern is that this downward trend is becoming irreversible. And if the season starts badly, panic sets in and a centre-forward can't be procured, who knows what could happen?


    THE SQUAD (players born after 1 January 1998 in italics)
    Goalkeepers: Zander Clark, Max Johnstone, Elliot Parish
    Defenders: Steven Anderson, Wallace Duffy, Richard Foster, Liam Gordon, Jason Kerr, Scott Tanser, Madis Vihmann
    Midfielders: Ross Callachan, Liam Craig, Murray Davidson, Matty Kennedy, Ali McCann, Kyle McClean, Danny Swanson, David Wotherspoon, Drey Wright
    Forwards: Callum Hendry, Chris Kane, David McMillan, Jordan Northcott, Michael O'Halloran


    THE BEST XI?

     

    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.
    View the full article
  4. hislopsoffsideagain
    PREDICTED LEAGUE POSITION: TWELFTH

    LAST SEASON: 11th, 32pts

    NOTABLE INS: Tony Andreu (Coventry City), Oan Djorkaeff (Nantes), Ilkay Durmus (Wacker Innsbruck), Sam Foley (Northampton Town), Dean Lyness (Raith Rovers), Sean McLoughlin (Hull City, loan)

    NOTABLE OUTS: Adam Eckersley (Airdrieonians), Mateo Muzek (Sheriff Tiraspol), Laurentiu Corbu (Dinamo Bucharest, end of loan), Anders Dreyer (Brighton & Hove Albion, end of loan), Lee Hodson (Rangers, end of loan), Jordan Holmes (Bournemouth, end of loan), Brad Lyons (Blackburn Rovers, end of loan), Kyle McAllister (Derby County, end of loan), Duckens Nazon (Sint-Truiden, end of loan), Mihai Popescu (Dinamo Bucharest, end of loan), Danny Rogers (Aberdeen, end of loan), Anton Ferdinand, Josh Heaton, Simeon Jackson, Sam Jamieson

    LAST SEASON'S BEST XI (Departed players crossed out): Hladky, Muzek, MacKenzie, Popescu, P. McGinn, S. McGinn, Lyons, Hodson, Magennis, McAllister, Mullen


    Just over a year ago, Jack Ross had guided a talented and entertaining St. Mirren side back to the Premiership. Such was the optimism about the place that when Chief Executive Tony Fitzpatrick claimed the club should be aiming for the top six eyebrows were only slightly raised.

    When Fitzpatrick said the same thing at the end of June it sounded like the ranting of a lunatic.

    Since that promotion, the Buddies have suffered the departure of Ross for Sunderland, 87 nightmare days under Alan Stubbs (who tried to replace the promotion-winning team with a bunch of duffers from down south), and then a proper rollercoaster ride with Oran Kearney in the dugout. The Northern Irishman had to wait ten matches for his first victory and won two of his first twenty-two league games in charge...and yet through a combination of against-the-odds squad unity and even-more-against-the-odds incompetence at Dundee the club managed to finish eleventh and then held their nerve in a penalty shootout against Dundee United to preserve their top flight status.

    At which point nearly all the gazillion short-term signings Kearney had made left...and then, in the last week of June, so did Kearney. Apparently he wanted to commute from Ulster and the club, not unreasonably, thought that was ridiculous.

    All in all, Jim Goodwin is not exactly being given the best chance to succeed in his first management post at a full-time club. When the signing of winger Ilkay Durmus was announced, the boss said "When I done my assessment on the team in my first couple of weeks I felt that we lacked a little bit of pace". He declined to mention that they lacked pretty much everything else, not least numbers. 

    He inherited just 12 players aged over 21, including defender Josh Heaton (the most notorious of Stubbs' duds - he cost £75,000 and played only two games before being released earlier this month), long-term casualty Greg Tansey and striker Cody Cooke who ruptured his ACL in the League Cup. 

    If anyone can pull this off though, it'll be Goodwin. An ultra-competitive and ruthless - to say the least - player who captained the club to the 2013 League Cup, he accomplished a miracle in keeping part-time Alloa in the Championship last season. He was the logical option to replace Kearney.

    But he's got a hell of a task on his hands. 

    Only in goal do they look sorted - Czech Vaclav Hladky made himself a hero with the fans with his shootout heroics in the playoff but he had already been excellent up to that point. There are however only three senior centre-backs. The third of those, Sean McLoughlin, pitched up on loan from Hull City just a day before the start of the new season. He should go straight into the lineup but expectations should be tempered by the fact that he only signed for Hull from the League of Ireland last week. 

    Alongside him will be either Jack Baird, who has never looked comfortable in the top flight, or Gary MacKenzie, who is 34 and missed most of last season with injury. His experience was crucial in the Spring, but the question is whether he was just rusty in the League Cup group games or if he is done.

    There is also no natural left-back, which is extraordinary. Paul McGinn can at least do a job on the other side, but has no natural backup. Hardly ideal. In the short-term talented youngster Ethan Erhahon will drop back from midfield but a better long-term solution is a huge priority.

    Up front, there's Danny Mullen, who scored only four times between the end of August and the end of last season. And, given that Cooke's injured, that's it. Incredible.

    At least there are options in the middle of the park, which have been augmented by the arrival of the experienced Sam Foley and Frenchmen Oan Djorkaeff - Youri's son - and Tony Andreu. Andreu wasn't great on his return to Hamilton last year and the fear is that his days as a goal threat from midfield are gone. Foley and captain Stephen McGinn will surely start, with veteran Ryan Flynn and youngster Cameron MacPherson also options.

    The arrival of Durmus will hopefully provide width that was sorely lacking in the League Cup games. Kyle Magennis will play on the opposite side. He could have a breakout season, but the 20 year old would really benefit from being in a stable team for a change.

    There will undoubtedly be new faces still to come. But it has a feeling of too little, too late about it. It feels like the Buddies are playing catch-up before the Premiership season has even started. Their best hope of survival is that someone else emulates Dundee's sheer awfulness. And that probably isn't going to happen.


    THE SQUAD (players born after 1 January 1998 in italics)
    Goalkeepers: Vaclav Hladky, Dean Lyness
    Defenders: Jack Baird, Gary MacKenzie, Nicholas McAllister, Paul McGinn, Sean McLoughlin
    Midfielders: Tony Andreu, Oan Djorkaeff, Ilkay Durmus, Ethan Erhahon, Ryan Flynn, Sam Foley, James Kellermann, Cameron MacPherson, Kyle Magennis, Stephen McGinn, Greg Tansey
    Forwards: Cameron Breadner, Cody Cooke, Danny Mullen

    THE BEST XI?

     

    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.
    View the full article
  5. hislopsoffsideagain
    PREDICTED LEAGUE POSITION: SEVENTH

    LAST SEASON: 3rd, 67pts

    NOTABLE INS: Mohamed El Makrini (Roda JC), Laurentiu Branescu (Juventus, loan)

    NOTABLE OUTS: Daniel Higgins (Cove Rangers), Jordan Jones (Rangers), Daniel Bachmann (Watford, end of loan), Conor McAleny (Fleetwood Town, end of loan), Liam Millar (Liverpool, end of loan), Youssouf Mulumbu (Celtic, end of loan), Mikael Ndjoli (Bournemouth, end of loan), Aaron Tshibola (Aston Villa, end of loan), Kris Boyd (retired), Scott Boyd (retired), Will Graham

    LAST SEASON'S BEST XI (Departed players crossed out): Bachmann, O'Donnell, Broadfoot, Findlay, Taylor, Dicker, Power, Mulumbu, Stewart, Jones, Brophy

    Steve Clarke, man. Sure, Jesus turned water into wine, but could he have guided Kilmarnock to third in the league? Dunno about that. I'm sure I wasn't the only neutral rooting for Killie last season. They weren't always pleasing on the eye but I've not seen a better organized team in Scotland. And whoever Clarke sent out onto the pitch would have jumped in front of a bullet if it meant getting a result. He was so damn magnificent that he was able to frequently (and publicly) criticize the SFA and still get the national team job.

    And so, midway through June, the club appointed Angelo Alessio as Clarke's successor.

    I was instantly on board with the move. Appointing another name from the ranks of Scottish football, a la Allan Johnston, Gary Locke, Lee McCulloch et al would have inevitably meant regression back to where they were before the Clarke era. Taking a punt on Alessio obviously came with risk - his previous management posts were in Italy's lower divisions and he has never worked in Scotland before - but like his predecessor his coaching CV is impressive - he assisted Antonio Conte at Juventus, Chelsea and with Italy's national team. If Killie were to have any hope of kicking on, it would be by pulling off a high risk, high reward move like this.

    Then along came Connah's Quay Nomads. What's that noise that sounds like something going down a drain? Why, that's most of the goodwill and benefit-of-the-doubt the fans had given Alessio being flushed away.

    A (very, very) generous person would point out that the new man has had only a few weeks and made only two additions to a squad that lost a lot of players at the end of last season. Most however would point to the fact that the Welsh side needed a penalty shootout to see off League Two Edinburgh City at home in last year's Challenge Cup. All, I think, are worried that the reason no-one had really heard of Alessio is because he is actually just Gary Locke standing on Lee McCulloch's shoulders, surrounded by a ridiculously large overcoat and putting on an outrageous accent.

    And a couple of weeks later there have been no further additions to the squad. Alessio has said himself he needs at least another centre-back, two wingers and a striker. In truth he probably needs even more than that.

    As we said, 'high risk'. If the ceiling is a repeat of third place (a thought that now seems optimistic to the point of delusional), how low is the floor? Certainly bottom six, though the spine of the team is surely far too strong to prevent disaster. Assuming Kirk Broadfoot has enough left in the tank, a back four of him, Stuart Findlay, Stephen O'Donnell and Greg Taylor is stout and talented. The latter three may have been called up for Scotland by their former boss, but they all earned it on merit rather than favouritism.

    Taylor has flown under the radar a bit because left-back is a real (the only?) position of strength for the country, but he has played more than 100 league games and is still just 21. Findlay made a real breakthrough last season, and O'Donnell is one of the best right-backs in the country. The return of Alex Bruce provides centre-back cover, and Taylor's backup Calum Waters is highly thought of at Rugby Park. But more depth is essential now Scott Boyd has retired.

    Alessio can also hang his hat on central midfield duo Gary Dicker and Alan Power, both of whom blossomed under Clarke. Veteran Dutchman Mo El Makrini is probably more of a squad player. The problem, as the manager has identified, is out wide where 35 year old Chris Burke remains the best option. Dom Thomas found his level on loan at Dumbarton last year and Adam Frizzell's development has stalled. Greg Kiltie is best as a number ten, but needs a manager to give him a run of games to show what he can do. Of the club's youngsters, the powerful Innes Cameron is probably the best bet to succeed. He doesn't turn 19 till August though and it may be a bit too soon for him.

    And if you think the wing options look poor then take a peek at the attackers - or attacker, singular. The only striker on the books currently is Eamonn Brophy. Brophy was a hit under Clarke partly because of his workrate and willingness to do the defensive work. He did lead the club with 12 goals last season, but he can be really streaky and his 'shoot first, think later' policy really needs to be binned if he is to push on. At the moment he has no competition to push him.

    And at the other end of the pitch, Jamie MacDonald faces the possiblity of yet another season where he starts as first choice and finishes on the bench. It's safe to assume Laurentiu Branescu has been signed on loan to play, though he will do well to emulate the efforts of Daniel Bachmann last season.

    So a lot now depends on who Killie procure between now and August. The hope is that Alessio can use his contacts to find some gems, and that the players respond positively to another tactical manager. The fear is that Connah's Quay is a sign of what's to come, and that within a few months the dreaded 'safe pair of hands' will be required to dig them out of a hole.


    THE SQUAD (players born after 1 January 1998 in italics)
    Goalkeepers: Laurentiu Branescu, Jamie MacDonald, Devlin Mackay
    Defenders: Kirk Broadfoot, Alex Bruce, Stuart Findlay, Ross Millen, Stephen O'Donnell, Greg Taylor, Calum Waters, Iain Wilson
    Midfielders: Chris Burke, Innes Cameron, Gary Dicker, Mohamed El Makrini, Adam Frizzell, Greg Kiltie, Rory McKenzie, Alan Power, Dom Thomas
    Forwards: Eamonn Brophy

    THE BEST XI?

     


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.
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  6. hislopsoffsideagain
    At the time of writing we're ten days away from Deadline Day - in Scotland it's midnight on Monday 2 September. Plenty is going to happen between now and then. For a start, the window has been closed for English Premier League and Championship clubs for more than a fortnight and so there are players who (in the Fraser Forster style) need to get out if they are to play at all between now and new year. That should mean some decent pickings on loan or permanently for Premiership sides.

    The flip side is that after a week Monday anyone at an SPFL club who hasn't moved yet will be essentially stuck till January. And it seems like everyone has players they want to punt. Here's a few...


    STEVIE MAY, STEPHEN GLEESON (ABERDEEN)
    The last-gasp collapse of May's triumphant return to St. Johnstone has probably done significant short-term damage to both parties. There was talk of Dundee being interested but they signed Kane Hemmings instead. Now May appears to be unwanted everywhere, not just at Pittodrie. Gleeson's situation has been complicated by injuries over the summer but he only started eight games last year and is now further down the pecking order. (Candidates for loan moves: Miko Virtanen, Bruce Anderson)


    SCOTT SINCLAIR, JACK HENDRY, EBOUE KOUASSI (CELTIC)
    If it's true that Neil Lennon wants to add a few more players yet then this list could be longer. The Sinclair situation has been badly botched; the club activated a contract extension in the summer but left it so long to decide they wanted shot of him that he can't join an English Premier League or Championship club. Unless he wants to go to League One or abroad he may be stuck till January. Hendry will probably go on loan with a number of Premiership clubs apparently interested in rejuvenating his career. Remember when Celtic argued Kouassi deserved a work permit as he was an 'exceptional talent'? He's made 12 starts in two and a half years and hasn't played since he recovered from an ACL injury sustained in October 2018. (Candidates for loan moves: Calvin Miller, Anthony Ralston, Ewan Henderson, Jack Aitchison)


    STEVEN BOYD (HAMILTON ACCIES)
    Boyd signed a new contract just days before Martin Canning was punted and has disappeared off the radar since. If he has been injured it hasn't been publicized (this is Accies we're talking about so don't completely rule out that possibility) but it feels like a long time since he scored a derby-winning screamer against Motherwell last August. (Candidates for loan moves: George Stanger, Shaun Want)


    ZDENEK ZLAMAL, OLLY LEE (HEARTS)
    Zlamal's now infamous poleaxing of a teammate against Ross County seems to have been the last straw for Craig Levein, who quickly signed Joel Pereira to take over between the sticks. Lee has been made available since the end of last season but hasn't found a new club; it's a shame for a guy who did pretty well when he first joined the club and strange given how many other Jambos (looking at you, Oliver Bozanic!) are still in Levein's good books. (Candidates for loan moves: Jamie Brandon, Bobby Burns, Harry Cochrane, Anthony McDonald, Rory Currie, Euan Henderson, Aidan Keena, Dario Zanatta)


    OLI SHAW (HIBS)
    To be fair, Shaw is more likely to move on loan than permanently; Hibs are weighing up the need for a backup to Christian Doidge and Flo Kamberi with the fact that Shaw requires games in order to develop. St. Johnstone have been linked with him and that would look like a good move. (Candidates for loan moves: Jamie Gullan, Innes Murray)


    NONE (KILMARNOCK)
    Killie need to get players in before Angelo Alessio can think of moving some on. (Candidates for loan moves: Devlin Mackay, Iain Wilson, Dom Thomas)


    GREGG WYLDE (LIVINGSTON)
    Having made just three appearances since signing in January, Wylde has been apparently sent to train with the youth team. (Candidates for loan moves: Craig Henderson)


    CRAIG TANNER (MOTHERWELL)
    Tanner is another one who looks set to go out on loan, providing he agrees to extend his short-term contract past the end of the month. 'Well are impressed with his recovery from the knee injury that has kept him out for more than a year and want to get him first team football somewhere for the rest of 2019. (Candidates for loan moves: Adam Livingstone, Barry Maguire, Jamie Semple)


    GRAHAM DORRANS, EROS GREZDA, JASON HOLT, JOE DODOO, JAMIE MURPHY (RANGERS)
    That's some list. Holt (who has been linked with St. Johnstone) and Dodoo have been persona non grata for about two years already. At 32, Dorrans is finding it difficult to find a suitor that will match the wages Pedro Caixinha gave him. Grezda has been a complete bust and a waste of £2million. Murphy has recovered from his long-term knee injury but the club have said they want to loan him out (which at Rangers often seems to mean that they don't want you anymore). (Candidates for loan moves: Jordan Houston, Aidan Wilson, Jamie Barjonas, Jake Hastie)


    DAN ARMSTRONG, DAVIS KEILLOR-DUNN (ROSS COUNTY)
    Armstrong broke his jaw at the end of June but it's hard to see him breaking into the County side when he is back to full fitness. Keillor-Dunn has already been told to find a new club amid rumours of an attitude issue. (Candidates for loan moves: Harry Paton)


    DAVID MCMILLAN (ST. JOHNSTONE)
    It's tempting to also include Steven Anderson - who is past it at this level - and Ross Callachan - who seems to be in Tommy Wright's bad books - on this list. McMillan is a cert though, in that the club have been trying to move him on for the best part of the year; a mediocre loan spell at Hamilton hasn't encouraged any takers. (Candidates for loan moves: Jordan Northcott)


    JIM KELLERMANN (ST. MIRREN)
    Buddies fans have probably forgotten Kellermann is still in Paisley. But he can't get in the team even when they're struggling to fill the bench. (Candidates for loan moves: Sam Jamieson, Cameron Breadner)


    And as a bonus...

    ANDREW DAVIES, CRAIG CURRAN, FRASER AIRD (THE CHAMPIONSHIP)
    Worth mentioning this trio as a bonus. Davies has never played for Dundee, having got injured immediately after signing in January. He apparently wants to go back to England. So does Curran allegedly, though you'd assume the Dark Blues want shot of him anyway. Aird seems to have rubbed Robbie Neilson up the wrong way quite spectacularly and wasn't even given a squad number. He's still at Tannadice though...for now.


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.

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  7. hislopsoffsideagain
    It's the hope that kills you. Any Scotland fan knows that all too well.

    And yet, and yet.

    For the first ten minutes last night, Scotland ripped into Russia. The sheer energy and will took the visitors - and the Hampden crowd - by surprise. The full-backs flew down the flanks; Callum McGregor demanded the ball at each stroke; John McGinn snapped at every Russian heel; Scott McTominay bestrode the midfield like a colossus. Steve Clarke's lineup and plan were absolutely perfect for the occasion.

    And then John McGinn scored.

    Goals change games. I'm not sure I've ever seen one change a game like this though. They buoy spirits, lift the crowd, inspire the scorers on.

    Instead Scotland instantly metamorphosed from a feral beast into a frightened hedgehog, unnerved even by the slightest passing breeze and rustle of leaves. This was not as a result of quality play by the opposition, nor pressure from the stands, nor tactical caution from the dugout. Having created a springboard to win the match, the players collectively baulked at actually jumping on it.

    The captain summed it up perfectly afterward. "It was as if it scared us".

    Andrew Robertson was hardly exempt from criticism himself. When cool, experienced heads were required, the captain was stuck in Liverpool mode. Every time the ball came his way he put his head down and charged up the pitch with it, even when every moment pleaded for someone in dark blue to put their foot on the ball, stop and take a deep calming breath. At one point he tried a backheel by the corner flag - his own corner flag.

    They were all at it though. Charlie Mulgrew, 33 years old and with over 40 caps to his name, could be excused for being bullied by Artem Dzyuba, whose physique had more in common with the twenty-two at Murrayfield than the penalty box at Hampden. There was no reason however for him to treat the ball like a hot potato, acting as if Dzyuba was constantly breathing down his neck even when he was twenty yards away catching his breath. Punt after punt after punt after punt. With the midfield struggling to get even into the same postcode as Oli McBurnie it was no surprise that the ball kept coming back.

    And what of the midfield that contains so much talent and started as if they intended to prove it? The quartet playing in front of McTominay looked like rabbits stuck in Lada headlights. James Forrest and Ryan Fraser dropped deeper and deeper, negating their use as an attacking outlet without offering any actual protection to their full-backs. McGregor and McGinn looked stuck in No Man's Land, neither pressing their opponents nor dropping in beside McTominay, who had now gone from proverbial Colossus to actual Colossus, a tall, leaden-footed statue watching as people swarmed around him.

    With the exception of David Marshall, whose outstanding efforts in preventing a shellacking will probably be forgotten, and Stephen O'Donnell, who just had a good old-fashioned mare, this felt very different from, say, a debacle like Kazakhstan where tactics were poor and players looked uncertain and unwilling from the off. Here the plan was great and was initially executed well, which tells us that the manager knew what he was doing and the players had the ability and nous to pull it off. Their subsequent reaction is perhaps more terrifying than if they had just played like horses**t.

    As Robertson said, they were scared.

    I grew up watching players like Colin Hendry, Kevin Gallacher, James McFadden and many others who seemed galvanized by wearing the Scotland shirt in the way we all believed we would be if, as in our dreams, we ever played for the national team. Now the wearers of said shirt appear burdened with the weight of twenty-one years of failure on it. Even in such a favourable situation, with a home crowd behind them and the reassurance of knowing that their strategy was working, the players simply could not deal with the pressure of being ahead against an opponent considered to be superior to them.

    How on earth do you fix that? All the clever management and tactics and quality in the world will only take you so far if in moments like that you simply can't help thinking "we're going to screw this up because we're Scotland".

    The only thing I'm certain of is that you don't fix it by playing Belgium three days later.

    The caveat: even if last night had gone well, the onus was still very much on preparing for those Euro 2020 playoffs. Those are the games that count now. Everything else is about building towards those. And there remains no doubt in my mind that if anyone can pull this off, its Steve Clarke.

    The fear is that even Clarke can't manage it. What if all those years of failure simply infect the Scotland National Team to such an extent that there's no shaking it?

    Or, to put it bluntly, what if there is actually no hope?


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.

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  8. hislopsoffsideagain
    McCall enjoys getting one over Dundee United and Shankland
    As post-match trolling goes...wow. Just, wow.


    Aye, so Ian McCall really doesn't like Robbie Neilson then. He certainly seemed to rather enjoy shackling Lawrence Shankland, who was anonymous against his former club; I bet other Championship coaches will be taking note. Shankland wasn't the only ex-Ayr player feeling grim after this one. Liam Smith got burned badly by Daniel Harvie when the left-back metamorphosed into a rampaging centre-forward to open the scoring, and seemed to be targeted by McCall. After being twisted and turned all day he eventually gave a penalty away by tripping Alan Forrest, with the winger scoring it himself to clinch the win.

    Whilst a lot of the focus post-match was on how perhaps folk had been too quick to anoint Dundee United as certs for promotion (ahem) it's worth noting that Ayr, who lost several good players in the summer and who are so short of numbers that Kris Doolan was the only one of their five subs who is over the age of 20, are only behind them on goal difference. It's early days but that's still pretty impressive. Can they sustain it?



    Crawford is running out of time
    Dunfermline-Inverness had 0-0 written all over it from early on, until a Devine intervention - Pars substitute Daniel Devine gave away a foolish penalty for handball late on against his former club that gifted the visitors three scarcely-deserved points. So Dunfermline, who dropped to the bottom of the table after Friday night's game, could count themselves pretty unlucky.

    The flipside is this:

    Also, just 34 goals total in 21 games? How incredibly dull is that? Crawford has had to face arguably the three strongest sides in the division in the opening five games; they now have three vulnerable opponents to come in Partick Thistle, Alloa and Morton. If they're still bottom after that, the international break would seem like a logical time to replace Crawford.



    Dundee look better with one up front
    Apparently Alan Trouten hadn't missed a penalty in more than five years before Jack Hamilton saved his tame spot-kick at Dens Park. And that leaves me a nice easy stick to beat James McPake with (not literally!) - if only Trouten had been as reliable as usual, then Dundee would have been held to a draw.

    But the Dark Blues hit the woodwork twice and kept Jamie MacDonald, signed on an emergency loan on Friday, busy in the Alloa goal all afternoon. Crucially, they appear to have found a system that works, eschewing a second striker and instead using Paul McGowan in a more advanced role. Moreover, Josh McPake was particularly impressive on the left. The eighteen year old, on loan from Rangers, set up Jordan McGhee's winner with some fine wing play and was a threat all afternoon. The change in formation leaves Kane Hemmings as a rather expensive substitute but if Dundee are starting to put it all together then that's not exactly a bad problem to have.



    Is Miller the solution for Thistle, or part of the problem?
    That was some finish from Kenny Miller to rescue a point for Partick Thistle, though it certainly wasn't a reassuring display from the Harry Wraggs; Albeit in blustery conditions, Arbroath should have blown them away in the first half and Luke Donnelly was denied a late winner by an erroneous offside flag.

    For long periods Thistle looked devoid of ideas, even when Gary Caldwell hooked Tommy Robson for tactical reasons before half time. Only Reece Cole, playing at the base of midfield, looked comfortable. It didn't help though that often Miller, looking frustrated, would drop as deep as or even deeper than Cole to try and get the ball, or drift to the flank to try and get the ball, or, well, just wander anywhere. Given he was the lone striker, it often meant that there was no-one up front at all. Apart from disrupting the shape, it's worth noting that Miller's 39 year old legs no longer get from A to B as quickly as they used to and he would surely do his team a lot more good if he held his position and showed some discipline. Giving the best (or the loudest) kid in the playground the ball at every opportunity isn't always the best idea.



    QOS (El) Bakh in business
    Given Morton's recent defensive travails, Allan Johnston might feel disappointed that Queen of the South only scored once, but when you've only won three league games since mid-January you take what you can get. Given the Doonhamers' dependence on Stephen Dobbie they will have welcomed a first goal for Faissal El Bakhtaoui, who has been devoid of confidence for the best part of three years. Deploying El Bakhtaoui on the left and out-and-out winger Connor Murray on the right in a 4-4-2 is adventurous to say the least but it did the business on this occasion.

    It will be interesting to see if Queens try that again at Inverness next weekend, who have a lot more attacking prowess than Morton do. That said, Dobbie limped off in the second half on Saturday and if he has to miss time El Bakhtaoui may be back at centre forward for that one anyway.


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.
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  9. hislopsoffsideagain
    Why would McCall want to leave this behind?
    Ayr United are in glorious form right now. Ian McCall said himself afterward that their first half performance at the Indodrill was as good as any he'd ever managed. Alloa were completely outclassed, unable to cope with United's passing and movement in open play or their physical presence at set plays. If anything, the 4-0 half-time score flattered the home side.

    As their victory over Dundee United last week showed, this sort of performance is currently the norm for Ayr, currently behind the Terrors only on goal difference. Any fears that they might have hit their ceiling last season have proven unfounded; if anything the loss of Lawrence Shankland has encouraged other players to lift their game. Frankly, this team are not only still on the up but they are credible title challengers at this point. Why, after four and a half years, would McCall want to chuck this for the team that's bottom of the league?



    Why would McCall want to take this on?
    Of course, McCall feels he has unfinished business at Firhill; his departure in 2011 after nearly four years was because of his need to deal with a gambling addiction. That said, I don't remember Thistle fans shedding many tears over his departure after three straight seasons of mid-table finishes in the old First Division...

    In the meantime, I wonder if he might get a bit of a shock when he takes off those red-and-yellow-tinted specs. Gary Caldwell's claims, a few days after his dismissal, that "the groundwork has been laid to challenge for promotion" were utterly ludicrous. Whilst some of the deficiencies that showed up in their crushing defeat by Dunfermline are due to low confidence and morale - which a good manager will fix - the squad itself was built by Caldwell to try and fulfil his delusion that Thistle could play like Roberto Martinez's Wigan. That's about as far away as you can get from McCall's idea of how football should be played.

    Add in the off-field uncertainty about finances and takeovers - how would this international consortium feel about having McCall as manager, and how would McCall feel about being made to fill his squad with Barnsley youth players? - and this feels like a heck of an undertaking. At the moment Thistle have 'this season's Falkirk' written all over them, though if anyone can turn this around it's Ian McCall.



    Arbroath run out of steam again
    It's a bit cliched but it's also true. One down to part-time opposition at home, the week after a defeat, the Tannadice crowd on their backs - this was exactly the sort of match Dundee United would have lost last season. Whether Robbie Neilson has put some steel into them or it's just because they have Lawrence Shankland, they dug themselves out of a hole and proved to the other sides in this division, as well as themselves, that this is not the Dundee United team of the last three seasons.

    That said, they were fortunate to still be in the match - Josh Campbell hit the post at 1-0 - and also fortunate enough to be playing Arbroath. Dick Campbell blamed a "lack of professionalism" for the two late concessions and he was right, but not in the way he meant. The Red Lichties' achilles heel remains the fact that they are not professionals; they inevitably run out of legs in the last quarter of matches and it showed here, just like it did at Inverness and at home to Partick Thistle. Their hopes of staying up would be massively boosted if Campbell manages to convince them to hit the treadmill before (or after, in the case of binman Bobby Linn) going to their day jobs.



    Signing Dorrans doesn't solve Dundee's big problem
    Graham Dorrans should, fitness permitting, be a fine signing for Dundee. He should stroll it at this level. But we said the same thing about Kane Hemmings as well, and he was again a substitute for Dundee at the weekend. That's because the Dark Blues are playing better with only one up top, with Danny Johnson currently keeping Hemmings and another talented forward, Andrew Nelson, out of the side.

    Dorrans should be a starter soon enough. But, like centre forward, central midfield is not a position of need for James McPake. Shaun Byrne and Jamie Ness were signed in the summer (and neither will have been cheap), Paul McGowan remains capable and teenager Finlay Robertson has been outstanding. Meanwhile Dundee again had to rely on the erratic Declan McDaid as a wide option, Jordan McGhee as a centre back and Jack Hamilton in goal. This does not smack of good planning. One can't help feeling that their prospects would be much improved if they had signed a vaguely competent defender instead of so many midfielders and strikers.


    Welsh walks all over Queen of the South
    Queen of the South actually went to the trouble of coming all the way up to Inverness from Dumfries on Friday, but their weekend away in the Highlands was essentially over by twenty past three on Saturday. Two up by that point, Caley Thistle switched to cruise control after that and whilst they only sporadically looked like landing a knockout punch they were easily able to deflect any attempted blows from the visitors. It wasn't a great spectacle but I imagine managers love matches like this when their team looks so confident and comfortable.

    It helps to have a midfielder who exudes that confidence and comfort in receiving and giving possession. Step forward Sean Welsh, making his first start since April after yet another spate of injuries. Welsh fired Inverness in front with a terrific strike from outside the box, but came into his own after Tom Walsh doubled the advantage. I think Welsh lost the ball once, in the 75th minute. Otherwise he was always either on the ball, casually twisting away from pressing Doonhamers before starting another attack, or looking to get it either from a teammate or by tackling an opponent. It was an utterly dominant performance, one that Caley Thistle have got used to since he came north. The worry with Welsh is always his fitness - he missed the promotion playoffs last year because of a broken foot - but if they can keep him from breaking down Inverness could well sustain their solid start.


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.
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  10. hislopsoffsideagain
    Another international week endured, and the national team came remarkably close to accomplishing an impossible task - increasing the apathy already surrounding them.

    It started in Moscow on Thursday night, where Scotland survived a first half onslaught mostly through luck rather than ability and then started the second period with purpose. And inevitably their best fifteen minute spell of the match culminated in a goal...for Russia.

    The subsequent collapse felt like just another humiliation to add to the list. But in the cold light of day it could be recognised that the team are considerably better organized than under Alex McLeish. Unfortunately, when one of your centre-backs is from the bottom end of the English Championship and the other might not even get a game for Aberdeen when teammates are fully fit, you are still going to get pumped by the Lukakus, De Bruynes, Golovins and Dzyubas of this world.

    Artem Dzyuba vs Charlie Mulgrew was a grossly unfair matchup at Hampden last month and yet somehow this was even worse, a footballing Zangief up against a guy who looks like he's temporarily taken off his denim shirt and acoustic guitar in order to play. It tells you something that Steve Clarke, confident enough to cap several of his former Kilmarnock charges in previous matches, thought that Stuart Findlay would fare even worse than the hapless Mulgrew and Mikey Devlin.

    When in the aftermath of that defeat I put it to the Twitterverse to suggest their strongest Scotland XI its worth noting that nobody went with either Mulgrew or Devlin as part of their lineup. I'd go with the majority picks of John Souttar and Scott McKenna, though it must be noted that this is a duo with great potential but who are still a long way away from where we need them to be. Ditto Findlay, Craig Halkett, Declan Gallagher and whoever else you can think of.

    And until Scotland solve this centre-back problem then they will always be up against it. Perhaps Clarke could - should - have protected them better with his midfield, though it should be remembered that a screen of Kenny McLean and Scott McTominay also got the runaround in Brussels. Finding the right balance in midfield remains a challenge; only John McGinn The Human Whirling Dervish appears to be a player for all seasons and all opponents. At what point does the manager have to conclude that picking your best playmaker, Callum McGregor, is no use if you can't get possession?

    But, if Clarke is still entitled to the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he is looking at the bigger picture - that the game in Russia mattered not a jot and that our World Cup Final is in March, the Euro 2020 playoff semi-final at Hampden against an opponent who will be closer to our level. Given the lack of preparation time at international level, there is certainly an argument that concentrating on your lineup and system for that game, and potentially the playoff final after that, is far more important.

    Which is fine as long as the hammerings don't destroy the confidence of the players or the fans. The capitulation in Russia was obviously concerning from that point of view. At least the players went about their business professionally against San Marino, though John McGinn's hat-trick against such abysmal opposition justifies only slightly more applause than putting one's own socks on in the morning. Still, it was a thumping win with no scares, no consolation goals conceded and despite dreadful conditions which added an element of interest and amusement to proceedings without hindering the home side.

    The twenty thousand - which hopefully included a lot of kids who haven't yet had their souls destroyed from watching Scotland for the last several years - who pitched up during a monsoon at least got to enjoy a victory and lots of goals. The official attendance was at least far higher than that which was expected a few days earlier, but a ticket price of £30 for a game like this raises significant questions about the SFA's priorities. It's clearly in the interests of the home team to get as many fans into the stadium as possible, and in the long run increasing interest and excitement in the national team can only be a good thing - look at the positive effect the success of the Women's Team has had.

    But prices like that stink of nothing more than trying to fleece over-loyal Tartan Army footsoldiers, which is a recurring theme over the last decade or so. What is the point of the national team in the SFA's eyes? Is it just to make money over the short-term, or is it about something far bigger? If it's the latter then it's no surprise that the product on the pitch is just as unambitious and small-time.

    If they have even a modicum of sense (don't hold your breath) they will try and cram as many folk into the ground for the Kazakhstan game as possible - hopefully a convincing win on the back of a victory in Cyprus. Then with spirits lifted, and five months having passed since the last competitive defeat, they need to do the same, charging buttons if necessary, for that playoff semi. For that is the get out of jail free card, where Scotland can pull itself out of this deep hole just (!) by winning two matches. Pull that off and all will be forgiven and forgotten.

    Fail, and it's back to oblivion for the indefinite future.


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.

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  11. hislopsoffsideagain
    So yeah, this tweet about Rangers' finances got some serious traffic and clogged up my mentions for a couple of days.



    Is it worth noting that not one of however many hundred people who saw that tweet noticed the mistake? Apparently I'm not the only one who can't count to seven...

    The numbers there though. Ooft.

    You don't have to be an accountant - and I'm not - to know that companies don't publish accounts late on a Friday evening if they want attention drawn to them. Though last year Rangers published their accounts on a Wednesday evening during a Rangers match, so I suppose this is a step up from that.

    It seems like the distraction has largely worked. Dave King appeared to be channelling the Iraqi Information Minister when he claimed "the financial year under review was again a positive one" but this line appears to have been swallowed by the Scottish media like a piece of, say, succulent lamb? The only piece of criticism I've seen was on Forbes.com. I don't think too many Scottish football fans check that out. (Of course, if you were cruel you could say the same about this site!)

    Anyroad, my mentions were filled with fans of other clubs claiming imminent liquidation, criticising the SFA for letting this happen, and suggesting that  UEFA's Financial Fair Play rules were being broken. There was also one apparently genuine Rangers fan who seemed to think Dave King is the Messiah.

    People of a certain vintage might remember an Only An Excuse sketch from when Livingston went into administration all those years ago, where a reporter was asked to explain the circumstances in layman's terms and described it as a "help ma boab situation".

    So is it Help Ma Boab time down Govan way? Let's see.


    Turnover is up
    This is the big positive. Not only did income increase, but it shot up dramatically by 63% to £53.2m. The main reason for this is the club's run to the Europa League group stages; income from European competition totalled £14.1m.


    So is the wage bill, but that's probably okay
    First team wages have more than doubled in two years, up to £23m. Overall staff costs are £34.4m which is still well behind Celtic (£56.6m) but is four times that of Aberdeen. That sounds like a huge figure but the wages-to-turnover ratio is 64.6% which is pretty acceptable.


    Those legal fees
    I initally misread this figure as £3.6m and thought "how on earth do you spend £3.6m on lawyers?" By picking a fight with Mike Ashley, that's how.  But in fact its a £3.6m increase in legal fees, so the amount is actually higher than that. Crumbs. The bloke at Forbes says the full figure is £9m but that sounds insane and I couldn't find that in the accounts. The saga of Rangers' kit deal with Hummel ain't over yet and seems likely to cost the club a decent seven-figure sum when it is finally concluded.


    What debts are there?
    "As at 30 June 2019, there are interest-free, unsecured loans with investors amounting to £10.3 million, other commercial loans of £3.0m, whilst the Group also has finance lease agreements totalling £1.2 million".

    This is hard for an amateur like me to decipher. What we do know is that Rangers have got by for years on soft loans from directors which have then been converted to equity further down the line. From what I can tell - and I may be talking out of my arse - it seems like all the soft loans from directors have been converted to equity since June 2019 via a share issue. The flipside is that they also state that there have been another £9.7m of investor loans in the last few months.

    This shares to equity thing has been ongoing throughout the King era. How long can they keep repeating it?

    Meanwhile we know a loan was taken out with financial house Close Brothers in February 2019; this is likely to be the aforementioned 'commerical loan'. The £200,000 of interest payments up till June are presumably related to that loan, which would suggest a pretty high interest rate. This is the problem with not being able to get a loan from a bank.


    A ten million quid hole
    If the Turnover part is the big positive for Rangers fans, then this is the overwhelming negative.

    "At the time of preparation, the forecast identified that the Group would require £10.0m by way of debt or equity funding by the end of season 2019/2020 in order to meet its liabilities as they fall due. The first tranche of funding is required from investors in November 2019".

    Ten million quid.

    For what its worth, in the last few seasons the accounts have also stated extra funding would be required - I believe it was £4.6m in last year's, and £3m the year before.

    Ten million quid.

    And that will be despite the expected income from Rangers' 2019/20 campaign, which includes another qualification for the Europa League and another £14m+ from that.

    One of King's family trusts, Laird Investments, is apparently going to cover the shortfall. Given that during the Takeover Panel saga King described himself as "penniless" because of a lack of control over family trusts, this is worth a raised eyebrow. That said, another one of his family trusts, NOAL, has converted £8.4m of loans into equity in the recent past so perhaps he is putting his money where his mouth is?


    Financial Fair Play
    Are Rangers breaking UEFA's FFP rules? The honest answer is "buggered if I know". The received wisdom is that losses of more than 30million Euros over three years are grounds for sanction, and they would be over that limit. However the FFP regulations are a nightmare to understand, which makes me suspect there are loopholes relating to the amount of money spent on infrastructure etc. With European football so critical to the business plan I find it impossible to believe that the club haven't thought of this.


    Looking ahead
    It feels like Rangers took a huge - even reckless - gamble on progress in Europe last season and this. Lord knows where failure would have left them. But lo and behold Stevie G managed to navigate about a million qualifying rounds and got Rangers access to the Europa League pot of gold.

    The thing is that they've had to take the same gamble again this year. And again they've reached the Europa League. Yet despite that they're still £10m short. Presumably that's because of the £11.5m spent on the likes of Ryan Kent and Filip Helander.

    Moreover, the turnover figure for 2019/20 is unlikely to be particularly higher than 2018/19 - why would it be? And yet with transfer fees and probably another hike in the wage bill, losses will be higher, unless they sell off prize assets like Alfredo Morelos. And that's before the whole Mike Ashley/Hummel stuff.

    So the fear is that the board are taking an even bigger and potentially dangerous punt - on Gerrard delivering the title and access to the untold riches of the Champions League. Pulling that off would solve any financial issues at a single stroke.

    And if they fail? There are plenty out there who would love to see an administration event, But whilst the Big Hoose of cards looks pretty fragile it has done so for several years without actually collapsing. Rangers still look like a financial basket case. But people keep putting money into the basket.


    And one other thing...


    Eros Grezda, I assume?



    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.

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  12. hislopsoffsideagain
    Scotland's Euro 2020 campaign was pretty much a disaster. The only thing good about it is that it's over now.


    It's now twenty-two years - nearly two-thirds of my life - since Scotland made it to a major tournament. That's eleven qualifying campaigns we've failed in.
    But was the most recent debacle the worst of the lot?
    My own football awakening was in 1991, aged seven. I'm not old enough to remember Italia '90, but I am old enough to remember what came after it. So let's rank, and reminisce about, the last fifteen Scotland qualification campaigns from Euro 92 to the present.
    This brings back some fond memories. And some not so fond ones...
    Start
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  13. hislopsoffsideagain
    Aside from a game between Morton and Queen of the South that needs rescheduled, the Scottish Championship has reached its halfway point. Eighteen games down, eighteen to go.

    It would be a stretch to say there is a title race.



    Thirteen points clear with eighteen games left? Surely Dundee United can't blow this.

    United haven't been perfect (their three defeats include a loss to Alloa and a 4-0 trouncing in Dumfries) but they have been close enough. At the time of writing they've won nine straight. Obviously having Lawrence Shankland helps - he has nineteen league goals already and has broken into the Scotland setup - but this United team is miles ahead in every area compared to the ones that have stunk up this division for the last three years. Once they get in front they have enough backbone and street smarts to see out games and pick off opponents at will. Aside from Shankland, Mark Reynolds and Calum Butcher have been particularly outstanding.

    Therefore the teams immediately below are realistically battling for the three playoff spots; getting second place and a 'bye week' could make a significant difference to a club's chances of promotion via this route.

    It's Caley Thistle who currently have a little bit of breathing space here. Not that they have been overly impressive - three teams have scored more and three have conceded fewer - but they've been a little less inconsistent than the rest.

    Crucially their last three home games have been victories against the three clubs immediately below them in the table, and with clean sheets to boot. That suggests that the backline is returning to form after a shaky autumn. Their problem remains a lack of goals. They've scored more than two in a game only once and no individual has managed more than four in the league. Finding a reliable forward would cement that second spot. Certainly you would fancy them to reach the playoffs again though.

    Next up are Ayr United who started like greased lightning with six wins out of seven but have hit the skids dreadfully since Ian McCall upped and left for Partick Thistle. His rookie replacement Mark Kerr hasn't been helped by a small squad incapacitated by injuries but its remarkable they are currently third given they've won just one of the last six.

    Unless they can reinforce considerably in January they are unlikely to stay there, especially as Kerr himself intends to hang up his boots next month. With other veterans such as Michael Moffat, Steven Bell and Andy Geggan looking past their best it could be tough going forward.

    In contrast Dundee will feel they are in the ascendancy now - and about time too, given this team can boast Kane Hemmings and Danny Johnson up front and Graham Dorrans in midfield. If one was being generous it could be said that manager James McPake had to gel together several new players, but the bottom line is that the Dark Blues are performing remarkably like their neighbours in the last few years - playing down to the opposition, often relying on talent rather than tactics to do the business.

    Still, they've won their last two and got into the top four. Their next three matches are against the trio currently above them, starting with the Boxing Day derby. A positive result at Tannadice would do wonders for confidence, not least because the two derby defeats so far have wrecked confidence for weeks afterward. The bottom line though is that anything other than a top four finish would be an embarrassment.

    Dunfermline have dropped back to fifth after a recent purple patch had put them into the top four. But they'll take that given Stevie Crawford looked under a fair bit of pressure when they won only one of their first eight league games.

    The turnaround has been mostly down to the outrageous form of striker Kevin Nisbet, who before last weekend's loss in Inverness had scored twelve in seven league games. If he can keep finding the net and the Pars can get the best out of midfield loan trio Greg Kiltie, Harry Cochrane and Anthony McDonald then they will be playoff-bound.

    I was actually surprised when I looked at the table to find Queen of the South up in sixth. Whilst they've had some impressive wins (such as the aforementioned drubbing of the league leaders) they've only won back-to-back games once. Has Stephen Dobbie begun to fade at last? The 37 year old has only five league goals so far this season. However the club have just given him another new contract and his acumen still looks plenty sharp for this level.

    The Doonhamers are another team who have a relatively small squad that struggles to deal with any injuries. An optimist would say they are still in the playoff race but they are closer to ninth than fourth and an injury to Dobbie would cripple them.

    I was also taken aback to see Arbroath down in seventh. Only six weeks ago they were in a playoff spot after crushing ICT at home but that might have been their ceiling. Since then they are winless. That shouldn't distract from the remarkable job Dick Campbell and co have done this season with a squad of gnarly part-time veterans from the lower divisions. They have gone toe-to-toe with everyone.

    And yet they could still be pulled into a relegation battle. There's always a risk that the semi-pros will run out of batteries towards the end of a long season. But these guys have been around the block often enough to deserve the benefit of the doubt.

    Just above the bottom two are Morton who will have probably had higher expectations than this when they appointed David Hopkin as manager. Perhaps its true he wasn't the brains of the operation at Livingston? Morton's home form is the reason they are this high; only last weekend did they pick up their first away league win.

    There's plenty of experience in Greenock with Jim McAlister, Chris Millar, Brian McLean and John Sutton amongst those playing significant roles. But few of the youngsters have pushed on and their two most prestigious summer signings, Aidan Nesbitt and Robbie Muirhead, have struggled. They need top scorer Bob McHugh to bounce back from a hamstring injury asap.

    Whatever former boss Gary Caldwell claims about putting together a squad capable of promotion, pre-contract moves for Ayr's Ross Docherty and QOS's Darren Brownlie tell you that Partick Thistle have no aspirations for this season beyond getting the hell out of the basement and retaining their Championship status.

    Sixteen points from twelve games under McCall is certainly progress but expect Thistle to be very busy in January strengthening the squad and trying to move on some of Caldwell's duds.

    And finally we have Alloa. Staying up last season was a minor miracle for the Wasps but repeating the feat will be very tough. Peter Grant has done a solid job succeeding Jim Goodwin in charge and they've not been pushovers by any means. But four straight defeats has seen them plunge to the bottom.

    Grant was quite prudent in the summer and it will be interesting to see if there is much squad turnover in January. Certainly if Alloa are going to survive they need to bring in new players, though they will remain tough opponents regardless.

    So here are my predictions for how it'll finish...and how confident I am about said predictions:

    PROMOTED
    Dundee United (would bet my mortgage on it)

    PROMOTION PLAYOFFS
    Inverness CT (very confident)
    Dundee (very confident)
    Dunfermline (wouldn't put money on it)

    RELEGATION PLAYOFFS
    Morton (not confident at all - could see Arbroath, QOS, Partick all ending up here)

    RELEGATED
    Alloa (pretty confident but they've proven us wrong before!)


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.
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  14. hislopsoffsideagain
    Outgoing Aberdeen chairman Stewart Milne gave an interview a few weeks ago where he criticized the refusal of Rangers and Celtic to allow change in Scottish football. It was almost as ridiculous as the toupee he sported at the start of his 21 year reign at Pittodrie.

    Many, including former St. Mirren chairman Stewart Gilmour, were more than willing to lay into Milne for his hypocrisy and his apparent attempts to rewrite history. It's no secret that other Premiership clubs were willing to use Rangers' absence from the top flight to rewrite voting rules that meant an 11-1 majority was required for significant change, which in turn allowed Rangers and Celtic to veto things they did not favour. Aberdeen, vainly believing they could take over as Scotland's second force, derailed this for their own perceived advantage. They enter the 2019-20 winter break back in fourth place.

    However Milne's comments lay plain the fact that at the start of 2020 Scottish football is once more in thrall to the blue and green cheeks of the Glasgow arse. Currently the gap between second and third is thirteen points (and the top two have games in hand). At the end of the 2010-11 season it was twenty-nine.

    So are we basically just back where we started?


    Some might argue that the 2010s was the decade of the diddy team. Dundee United, Hearts, St. Johnstone, Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Hibernian - Hibernian, who seemed cursed to never win the competition again! - won the Scottish Cup in the last decade. Kilmarnock, St. Mirren, Aberdeen and Ross County all lifted the League Cup in the same period.

    The liquidation of Rangers in the summer of 2012 was in some ways the defining moment of the last ten years in Scottish football. Off the pitch, it doomed us all to an apparent eternity of tedious 'newco'/'Sevco'/'there is no Old Firm' arguments. On the pitch, Rangers' rise from League Two provided some welcome publicity and cash to lower league clubs and plenty of amusing moments for non-Bluenoses as the Gers made rather heavy weather of their rise up the leagues despite having the second highest wage bill in the country even when they were in the fourth tier.

    It also meant that in the top flight there was no real competition for Celtic for many years. Only two of their eight consecutive titles has been won by less than fifteen points; even those two, the last two, were won by nine.

    But in knockout competitions the door was flung wide open. The aforementioned trophy winners and their supporters were galvanized by their sudden ascendance into relevance. It rather helped that Celtic spent two years under incompetent Norwegian coach Ronny Deila; whilst their vastly superior squad depth ensured glory in the league they proved remarkably vulnerable in cup matches.

    Alas, this period was all too brief. Hibernian were the last club other than Celtic to win a cup (no, the Petrofac Training Cup doesn't count), in the summer of 2016. Since then the Bhoys have swept the board with a 'treble treble'. The combination of overwhelming financial muscle and an extremely talented coach in Brendan Rodgers made them literally unbeatable in 2016-17. Having Rodgers in the country did bring in some kudos but his extraordinary success once more left the league open to accusations of being a procession.

    Rangers were finally promoted to the Premiership in 2016, but took two further years to get themselves sorted out properly. Now under Steven Gerrard they look like Celtic's equals and could well win the title this season.

    The SPFL frequently trumpets rises in attendances, but these are mainly because of the large visiting supports the two Glasgow clubs bring. In fact many sides have noticed a reduction in the size of the home supports at these matches. The experience of hosting either club, with the dreadful, hateful songs and the strong likelihood of a heavy beating, is not a pleasant one. Fighting for a distant third place, whilst pretty much writing off three or four home matches per season, is no healthier a position than it was in the past.

    Thus Scottish football remains locked in the mindset that a strong, wealthy Rangers and Celtic, with cash trickling down to the other clubs, is the way to go.

    One thing that is different is the lack of relevance even the strongest Scottish clubs have on the European stage. Only twice in the last six years have Celtic made it to the Champions League and that ratio is unlikely to improve now that the path through qualifying has become harder. The Europa League, a distraction in the days of Deila, is now a major focus.

    Financially, it does seem as if the Champions end up selling a star player each year they don't make it to the Champions League. Rangers have spunked tens of millions away in the last seven years and still run a seven figure loss annually. This blogger's biggest concern is that other full-time clubs seem to be struggling to run within their means as well, especially the ones in the Championship. Whilst a repeat of the administration plague that hit Scottish football in the noughties is hardly imminent it is hard to see how as many 20 full-time clubs can be supported in the long term. It could be argued that none of them can break even without either significant success on the pitch or selling their best players.


    At international level the lone bright spot has been the breakthrough of Scotland's Women's team who not only qualified for a European Championship and World Cup but captured the hearts of many by doing so.

    As regards the men there has been precious little to crow about. The fact that the greatest moment of the decade for the Scotland mens' team was a Leigh Griffiths goal against England which ultimately didn't even win the match sums things up nicely.

    Even at the best of times we have no right to expect qualification for the World Cup. But a twenty-four team European Championship? Wales, Northern Ireland, Iceland and Albania got to Euro 2016. Scotland did not.

    The same old SFA failings played a major part. After gross underachievement in the Euro 2012 qualifiers - 4-6-0, indeed - Craig Levein was kept on long enough to ruin our 2014 World Cup hopes. Gordon Strachan wasn't the worst appointment, though it showed an unwillingness to think outside the box. And when, after he was let go, the powers that be tried the outside-the-box thinking they be the farm on Michael O'Neill, only to find that Northern Ireland now had a bigger farm.

    The humilation forced the resignation of Chief Executive Stewart Regan and in the aftermath the organization went back to what it knows best - jobs for the boys. Hence the fourteen month fiasco that was Alex McLeish's second spell. Never has the morale of the Tartan Army been so low.

    Going into 2020, the national team feels like it is at a Sliding Doors moment. The Nations League has given us an extra shot at Euro 2020 qualification which depends on beating Israel at home and Norway or Serbia away. Pull it off and he and his side will be heroes. Blow it, missing out on a tournament which includes matches at Hampden itself, and that might finally be it for many fans.

    As for the youngsters, you tell me what's happening there. Mark Wotte was appointed as the first Performance Director in 2011 and was later succeeded by Brian McClair and then the rather controversial Malky Mackay. It seems to me that there have been plenty of decent results by Scottish youth teams in the 2010s but that will matter to no-one if senior results don't improve.


    All in all it feels like the 2010s produced plenty of opportunities both domestically and internationally that have been squandered in favour of the apparently safe status quo. It is often said that one has to run to stand still. Scottish football continues to stand still and wonder why the rest of the world is rushing off into the distance.


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.

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  15. hislopsoffsideagain
    The reaction to St. Johnstone's decision to give three McDiarmid Park stands to Rangers and Celtic fans was somewhat mixed.

    There was, for example, this piece from the Daily Record's Michael Gannon claiming that they were trying to 'make a quick buck' by exploiting the biggest supports in the country - because giving said supports more tickets is, apparently, 'exploitation'.

    Especially when said tickets are £28 a pop. Sure, we'd all like to pay less for football tickets, but criticizing the price is rich given it costs only a quid less for away supporters at Celtic Park to watch from the infamous 'restricted view' seats that, in addition to watching their team getting pumped, give the spectator the treasured bonus of an acute case of torticollis.

    However, plenty were pragmatic about it. Whilst few actually believed the Perth Saints' claim that temporarily shifting some fans so the home support was amalgamated in one area would help provide a 'partisan atmosphere' - there's no way that was written with a straight face - we're not talking small change here. Gannon claimed St. Johnstone would "trouser a couple of hundred grand which might fund a couple of players".

    A couple of hundred grand would equate to about 5% of St. Johnstone's annual turnover. It's more likely to pay for four players than for two. It might be loose change for Scotland's largest two clubs, but it is a significant amount of money for a club of their size...and for at least half the clubs in the Scottish Premiership.

    Gannon bizarrely suggested away fans should boycott Perth in protest. He did also briefly mention one of the reasons why St. Johnstone can, and need to, take this step - the fact that season ticket holders are dodging these matches.

    Those are generally the most loyal supporters, and ones who have actually paid for their seats already. And yet they are eschewing the chance to watch the biggest and most talented clubs in the country take on their own side.

    Imagine season ticket holders at Bournemouth and Watford deciding to skip the visit of Liverpool or Manchester City, or Getafe fans staying at home when Barcelona come to town. I attended a Middlesbrough-Manchester United match in 2008 where the visiting support took great joy in proclaiming "you're only here for United!" loudly. It was true too; my mate spent the whole game salivating over Paul Scholes and I over Wayne Rooney.

    But St. Johnstone's fans are not the only ones turned off by the Gruesome Twosome. Other clubs have also noted their season ticket holders staying away in similar circumstances.

    There are a few different factors at play here. One is that these games tend to have awkward kickoff times. Another is that no-one ever enjoys seeing their team get gubbed. After a few years where both Celtic and Rangers looked like potential scalps when you got them on your own patch, we've rewound to the days when, for example, Stephane Guivarc'h scored two in an 8-0 win for Dick Advocaat's Rangers...in Perth.

    But that was never quite enough to keep folk away. Perhaps the star power of Brian Laudrup, Henrik Larsson etc. was worth the ignominy. Alfredo Morelos and Odsonne Edouard are talents but hardly in the same stratosphere.

    And then of course there is the whole experience of having Rangers and Celtic fans in town.

    Sure, they aren't the only ones to sing unpleasant songs, to invade the pitch, to set off flares, to throw objects, to damage the stadium.

    But it only feels inevitable when it's one of those supports.

    At Inverness (a place that neither club are likely to be visiting again in the near future) I've seen fans of both clubs drinking in the streets - Strongbow for Celtic fans, Buckfast for Rangers fans - urinating outside the ground (as if they don't think indoor plumbing has reached the Highlands yet) and have endured loud aggressive chants about killing people which have no relation to the actual match or opponent.

    It is not a lot of fun.

    So we've now reached a strange denouement where fans of other Scottish clubs are turned off by Rangers and Celtic, and yet the big two and the SPFL will cite the impressive viewing figures for their derby clash at the end of December as further evidence that, outside Scotland at least, they're the only clubs that matter.

    Which is fair enough until they complain that no-one else wants to watch them...


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly

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  16. hislopsoffsideagain
    Okay, so in terms of finances the headline is just an eensy weensy bit OTT. Inverness Caley Thistle should have enough cash to get through the season. And given that a club of the size of Queen of the South can still manage to stay full-time there's not really any likelihood of ICT having to go part-time in the near future.

    Still, they have suffered losses of £2m in the last three years - £400,000 in the 2016/17 relegation campaign and £800,000 in each of the last two seasons. That's really quite a lot of money.

    Worse, last season's figures did not improve despite a run to the Scottish Cup semi-finals, a league finish two places higher than in 2017/18 and a few high earners being moved on.

    Hence an EGM in September which was essentially a (successful) plea for directors and local businessmen and allies of the club to stump up some cash to cover any shortfall for the rest of the current campaign.

    On the pitch things are at least a bit rosier. ICT lie second in the Championship. The title and automatic promotion are now out of reach; Dundee United are approximately a gazillion points clear and would still win the division if they put Csaba Laszlo back in charge for the remaining matches. However the Highlanders have a juicy ten point cushion over fifth place and are in pole position to get the bye week for the promotion playoffs whilst the third- and fourth-placed sides joust. That in itself would improve their chances of going up.

    But now it's January, so clubs are sniffing around players whose contracts expire in the summer. As one of the Championship's better sides, it's no surprise that there is interest in Caley Thistle's players. And with the chances of going up still not especially high - four out of six playoff finals have been won by the Premiership side - it's also no surprise that the players are interested in moves to Premiership clubs.

    Central defender Coll Donaldson, a Dundee United dud rebuilt in Inverness, has talked to Ross County. St. Johnstone have been linked with his fellow defenders Jamie McCart and Shaun Rooney. McCart is still only 22 and has impressed since joining from Celtic. Rooney had underwhelmed at Queen of the South before signing but has improved exponentially over the last year into a powerful, athletic attacking right-back.

    According to reports, at least two more players have suitors. One is almost certainly winger Tom Walsh, whose season has been interrupted by hamstring problems but who is outstanding at getting half a yard on his man and whipping in a cross with either foot. The other may be Jordan White, the archetypal Big Man Up Front. He is apparently wanted by Motherwell, though I have no idea why.

    That's essentially half a team that are very likely to leave in the summer...or sooner than that. Inverness signed Falkirk defender Lewis Toshney last week in a move that could well be covering Donaldson joining County during this window.

    That's not to say the players left behind are all hopeless. Sean Welsh is one of the best midfielders in the league but is also made of glass. James Keatings is a good attacker for this level. Mark Ridgers offers a reliable pair of hands between the sticks.

    But rebuilding this team, and almost certainly with an even tighter budget, would be some undertaking. As Falkirk have recently shown, a big turnover of players can go spectacularly wrong.

    It is quite remarkable that, three years into their current stay in the Championship, Caley Thistle have their best chance to get out of it. If they can't take it, it would be even more remarkable if another one came around any time soon.


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly

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  17. hislopsoffsideagain
    To be fair, Aberdeen fans probably aren't alone in suffering from a kind of collective footballing dementia.

    On the one hand, their long-term memory is generally outstanding, especially when it comes to the 1980s and the word "Gothenburg" is mentioned. More Aberdonians claim to have been there than hippies at Woodstock.

    And you can hardly blame them for suppressing any recollection of the early part of the 21st century, the era of managers such as Ebbe Skovdahl, Steve Paterson, Jimmy Calderwood and Mark McGhee, of forwards like Leon Mike, Laurent D'Jaffo, Leigh Hinds, Bryan Prunty, David Zdrilic...I've only got as far as 2004 and already any Dons fans reading this have retreated to the corner of the room and curled up into a ball, whimpering softly.

    But when it comes to Derek McInnes, there's a definite feel of "what did he ever do for us?" going around right now. Well, apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, he managed:


    four consecutive second place finishes (the last time they had previously finished second was in 1993-94) six consecutive top four finishes (they had finished in the top four six times in the previous seventeen seasons before Deek arrived) a League Cup win (their first trophy for nineteen years) two other League Cup finals and a Scottish Cup final (they had made it to four finals in the previous twenty years) But that was then and this is now. And now Aberdeen go to Hamilton tonight on the back of a five match goalless streak. Their only goal in 2020 so far is a penalty...at home to League One Dumbarton. They are fourth in the league, only three points behind third placed Motherwell, but are eight points worse off than they were at this point of last season.
    You know it's bad when it comes to this: 

    That is the sort of guff that a manager starts saying when they are feeling the pressure.

    The truth is that Aberdeen look so stale that one expects to find a turquoise mould beginning to blossom on Andrew Considine's scalp.

    Perhaps there's an inevitability about that. McInnes is the second longest serving manager in the SPFL, just six weeks shy of seven years at Pittodrie. For comparison, Tommy Wright is the only Premiership manager who has been in his current post for more than three.

    And a few years ago the team hit a ceiling that was constructed out of shatterproof glass. 

    The pinnacle was probably the 2017 Scottish Cup Final, where they scored first and went toe-to-toe with Brendan Rodgers' invincibles until Tom Rogic's injury time winner. The lineup that day? Lewis, Logan, Taylor, Reynolds, Considine, Shinnie, Jack, McLean, McGinn, Hayes, Stockley. Ryan Christie was ineligible to play against his parent club. Before he arrived in January, they had got half a season of James Maddison on loan.

    Two and a half years on, five of that starting eleven remain. Shay Logan, Andrew Considine and Niall McGinn are all the wrong side of thirty and trending downward, while Ash Taylor, who returned to the North-East last summer has been a shadow of the player who left the club after that match. That leaves only keeper Joe Lewis playing at anywhere near the same level.

    And just look at the quality of the players who have gone, particularly that midfield. Five years ago I'd have happily bet that playing for Aberdeen would have been the career pinnacle for Kenny McLean (now in the Premier League), Graeme Shinnie (in the English Championship), Ryan Jack (bossing it for Rangers) and Jonny Hayes (signed by Celtic for £1.5million). Hell, Jayden Stockley's career trajectory since moving on makes his failure to impress a bit of a weird one.

    The rebuild has been tough, and its hard to know whether McInnes captured lightning in a bottle with some of his signings in the first few years, or alternatively he has just been unlucky in the last couple. Again, take the midfield. Craig Bryson, Funso Ojo and Ryan Hedges certainly came with a decent pedigree but none have made a decent impact. Before that, Chris Forrester and Stephen Gleeson proved to be huge misses, but both looked like good purchases.

    Regardless, the remarkable form of striker Sam Cosgrove had papered over a lot of cracks. Now Cosgrove has hit the most spectacular funk in the Granite City since a James Brown-tribute act graced The Lemon Tree, the deficiencies are there for all to see.

    It doesn't help that McInnes has shown little taste for tactical evolution. His obsession with man-to-man marking in open play works when he has superior players but often goes terribly wrong against stronger teams or better coached ones. Not unreasonably he has been criticized for a poor head-to-head record against Rangers and Celtic. It did not go unnoticed amongst the support that the side who pipped the Dons to third last time out were an extraordinarily well-coached David who not only had a habit of beating Goliath but also took great pleasure in shouting "bye-bye, Rangers!" at them.

    To make matters harder still, a new chairman with American business links and an eye on trying to use the new stadium - which seemingly they now won't get into till 2023 - as a platform to push on will surely demand some on-pitch success to generate momentum and encourage investment.

    That at least means that, if it proves that seven years is long enough, a successor will have a far stronger platform to work from than McInnes did in 2013, or any of his predecessors did for a generation before that. But even if his time is up soon, Aberdeen fans should force themselves to remember the nightmare years beforehand, and realize that "we need to move on from Derek McInnes" and "Derek McInnes has been a successful Aberdeen manager" are not mutually exclusive positions.


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.
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  18. hislopsoffsideagain
    So there's only, what, three months of the season left? We're getting to that time where managers are beginning to think of who will be in next season's squad, where some players are either getting their agents to try and get them a move or panicking that they might be unemployed by the end of May.

    Going by the information available, 117 players with first team experience are out of contract in the summer. Let's break them, and their likely fates, down...


    ABERDEEN
    Luc Bollan, Tomas Cerny, Danny Rogers, Frank Ross

    The future of Cerny and Rogers depends largely on what the Dons are looking for in a no. 2 keeper next season. It wouldn't be a surprise if the former, 35 in April, stayed on. Rogers is on his gazillionth loan spell and surely if he had a future in the North East he'd have got a crack by now. Injuries have restricted Ross to just four games in the last season and a half and it would take an enormous show of faith in his potential for him to be given another deal. Youngster Bollan hasn't got anywhere near the first team since arriving last summer from Dundee United.


    CELTIC
    Craig Gordon, Jonny Hayes, Calvin Miller, Stephen Welsh

    It seems like Gordon, 37, is agitating for one last go at first team football given there was talk of him moving on in January. Hayes is now the wrong side of 30 and attempts to convert him into a full-back have not been successful enough to justify keeping him on; it would be no surprise if he joined another Premiership club though. Miller has missed the whole season with a knee injury and Celtic have a habit of giving youngsters contract extensions if only so that they can get a small fee and/or a perecentage of future transfer fees from selling them later; that should mean a new contract for both him and Welsh, who made his debut last month after a 'meh' loan spell at Morton earlier in the season.


    HAMILTON ACCIES
    Steve Davies, Markus Fjortoft, Alex Gogic, Kyle Gourlay, Ronan Hughes, Scott Martin, Aaron McGowan, Mickel Miller, Reegan Mimnaugh, David Moyo, George Oakley, Marios Ogkmpoe, George Stanger, David Templeton, Andy Winter

    A caveat first: Accies are worse than anyone - except maybe Ross County - for keeping contract lengths secret. Why? I have no idea. A few years back the then-club secretary, Scott Struthers, would happily respond to email requests for info, but that was then and this is now. So it's possible that Owain Fon Williams, Johnny Hunt and Blair Alston should be on this list, but in the last few years players whose contract details have not been disclosed have usually been given two year contracts by Hamilton.


    As for those on the list, the first question is 'who might attract a bigger club?' The only two names that jump out there are Alex Gogic and David Templeton. Moreover, with the club's top flight status likely to go down to the wire there are not likely to be many extensions on the horizon for anyone and relegation will obvious affect the budget. Those most likely to move on regardless would be veteran backup striker Davies, youngster Hughes who hasn't fulfilled his potential and third choice keeper Gourlay.


    HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN
    Donis Avdijaj, Daniel Baur, Oliver Bozanic, Jamie Brandon, Rory Currie, Clevid Dikamona, Euan Henderson, Marcel Langer, Cammy Logan, Steven MacLean, Leeroy Makovora, Lewis Moore, Alex Petkov

    Several of these names are youths who have only a handful of first-team minutes. Henderson and Moore have been in the first team frame in recent weeks and so would surely be candidates for new deals. In contrast, injury-prone Levein favourite Brandon may not be so fortunate. 

    Of those more senior, Avdijaj and Langer are only a few weeks into short-term deals so can't really be judged, whilst MacLean is on loan at Raith and so surely won't play for the club again. Bozanic and Dikamona are squad players who the club really should be looking to upgrade on.


    HIBERNIAN
    Adam Bogdan, Vykintas Slivka, Steven Whittaker

    With a list this small, Jack Ross' main concern will be shifting the deadwood that's still under contract. Whittaker wants to keep playing but he's 36 next summer and surely won't get another deal. Bogdan might stay if both he and the club are happy with him being number two keeper. One wonders if Slivka might benefit from a fresh start elsewhere.


    KILMARNOCK
    Harry Bunn, Chris Burke, Gary Dicker, Mohamed El Makrini, Adam Frizzell, Stephen Hendrie, Greg Kiltie, Jan Koprivec, Jamie MacDonald, Devlin Mackay, Rory McKenzie, Ross Millen, Stephen O'Donnell, Iain Wilson

    Of this quite long list, only O'Donnell could realistically leave for a bigger club. He'll be 28 in May and it'll surely be his last big contract. It'll be interesting to see if Killie finally choose to cut loose any of Kiltie, Wilson and Frizzell, all highly-touted youngsters who have failed to make the expected progress. At the other end of the age spectrum Burke is in wonderful shape for 36 but surely doesn't have much left in the tank, while captain Dicker will be 34 in the summer. El Makrini may not have done enough to justify triggering the option on his contract and Jamie MacDonald's Killie career is essentially over.

    However, the club will surely offer McKenzie a new deal and Millen provides relatively cheap depth. Bunn signed a short-term deal in January.


    LIVINGSTON
    Chris Erskine, Jack Hamilton, Craig Henderson, Ricki Lamie, Steven Lawless, Gary Maley, Jack McMillan, Aaron Taylor-Sinclair, Scott Tiffoney

    Lawless has arguably had the season of his career and may be hard for Livi to retain. Lamie, McMillan and Taylor-Sinclair are all first teamers who you would expect to be offered new deals. It's not clear that Tiffoney, Hamilton and Henderson have made enough progress to justify contracts though, while Erskine's top flight days are surely numbered. Remarkably, 37 year old third choice keeper Maley is actually on a part-time deal.


    MOTHERWELL
    Charles Dunne, Rohan Ferguson, Mark Gillespie, Peter Hartley, Christian Ilic, Adam Livingstone, Christopher Long, Barry Maguire, Christy Manzinga, Richard Tait, Tony Watt

    The Steelmen will be particularly desperate to hold onto first choice keeper Gillespie and striker Long, which will not be easy. Veteran Tait has lost his place in the starting lineup this season but it would be a surprise if he doesn't stay around, whilst Hartley has broken back in in the last few months. Its hard to know where Dunne and Ilic stand because of recent injuries, but Stephen Robinson highly rates the latter.

    Of the strikers, Watt has only just arrived but Manzinga has not really shone so far. Youngsters Ferguson, Livingstone and Maguire have not established themselves in the way other youth academy players have in the last few years.


    RANGERS
    Jak Alnwick, Jon Flanagan, Wes Foderingham, Andy Halliday, Jason Holt, Jordan Rossiter, Aidan Wilson

    I wouldn't expect any of these players to remain. Holt, Rossiter and Alnwick have essentially been away on loan for most of the last two seasons. Foderingham wants another crack at being a first choice keeper. It's hard to believe either Flanagan or Halliday is worth keeping around as a backup full-back. Each of Wilson's three loan moves has been one division lower than the previous one, which doesn't bode well for his prospects.


    ROSS COUNTY
    Don Cowie, Richard Foster, Marcus Fraser, Tom Grivosti, Sean Kelly, Tom Kelly, Declan McManus, Callum Morris, Harry Paton, Lewis Spence, James Wallace, Keith Watson

    Like with Accies, I'm a little bit uncertain whether all the names on this list are correct. But unfortunately the club declined to respond to my email asking for information.

    I'd expect Cowie (already a player-coach) and possibly Foster to retire from playing. McManus is seeing out his deal on loan at Falkirk. The rest could all conceivably be offered new deals, but could equally be moved on either because they want to return to the central belt or because County will feel they need to look for upgrades. I'd imagine they would be most keen to keep Fraser, Grivosti, Paton and maybe Spence.


    ST JOHNSTONE
    Steven Anderson, Callum Booth, Ross Callachan, Liam Craig, Murray Davidson, Olly Hamilton, Max Johnstone, Chris Kane, David McMillan, Jordan Northcott, John Robertson, Danny Swanson, Drey Wright

    I think Tommy Wright might spontaneously combust if Booth, Kane and Wright aren't offered new contracts. There's plenty of veterans on this list, with Davidson probably more likely to be kept on than Craig and Swanson. Anderson, Callachan and McMillan are definitely done for, while the youngsters haven't really shown any sign that they can break into the first team so far.


    ST MIRREN
    Tony Andreu, Cameron Breadner, Cody Cooke, Oan Djorkaeff, Ryan Flynn, Scott Glover, Vlaclav Hladky, Gary MacKenzie, Nicholas McAllister, Stephen McGinn, Danny Mullen, Ross Wallace

    St. Mirren will likely hold off offering new deals until they're out the other end of their relegation battle. Hladky will surely be tempted away by one of his many admirers. It's a surprise Djorkaeff is still here as he trained with Queen of the South in January. Veterans Wallace (recently signed till the end of the season) and MacKenzie might well be allowed to leave, whilst Flynn's knee injury couldn't have come at a worse time.

    Club captain McGinn has had his own injury problems recently. Strikers Cooke and Mullen seem to have dropped down the pecking order recently, though Andreu remains a regular. Of the youngsters only Glover has started a first team game.


    and as a bonus...

    DUNDEE UNITED
    Rakish Bingham, Kieran Freeman, Chris Mochrie, Cammy Smith, Oswan Sow, Sam Wardrop, Paul Watson

    Given United are pretty much certain to be promoted, we may as well take a look at their situation. I'm surprised highly-rated kid Mochrie hasn't signed a long term contract yet. Freeman, who recently returned to the club from Southampton's youth setup, is trying to prove he's worth keeping. Are any of the other five worth keeping? I'm not sure. Watson has proved a decent squad option but he's not good enough for the top flight. Bingham is a stopgap short-term signing because Sow is injured. Smith and Wardrop are seeing out their United contracts on loan deals elsewhere.


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.

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  19. hislopsoffsideagain
    In case you haven't heard, the Caley Thistle One has been freed.

    To recap: a couple of weeks back, ICT forward James Keatings was shown a second yellow card in the Challenge Cup semi-final against Rangers Colts after referee Greg Aitken felt he had dived. It was a terrible decision; even without the benefit of multiple forensic camera angles, it was clear as day that he had been bumped and knocked over. The resultant suspension would rule him out of the Challenge Cup Final which, for the sake of the narrative, has been temporarily elevated in the minds of Scottish football fans from 'a pointless tournament now that foreign clubs and Colt teams are in it' to 'somewhere between the World Cup and the European Championships' in terms of importance.

    Aitken has form, as Livingston's Steven Lawless, Ayr's Mark Kerr and St Johnstone's Tommy Wright will attest to. This is an official who once booked Alfredo Morelos for diving, deciding there was no contact even though the opposing goalkeeper required treatment for a bleeding face. What can I say? In other civilized countries, people like that aren't allowed to run with scissors. In Scotland, we make them referees.



    No matter though, because the SFA has an appeal system set up to fix these mistakes. Which is fine, until the three person panel inexplicably decides not to do so. I say 'inexplicably' firstly because it actually seemed impossible that it wouldn't be overturned and secondly because the process is about as transparent as a bar of lead. We don't get to find out any of the reasoning at all.

    Until now.

    Kind of.

    Because on Saturday afternoon - which was absolutely definitely positively not an attempt to bury the news by making a statement at a time when fans are usually at football matches - the SFA announced there would be a new appeal.

    The reason? One of the panel members "did not undertake their obligations with respect to consideration of all the available evidence".

    Well, that raises more questions than answers. For a start, given the evidence consists of multiple video clips showing it clearly wasn't a dive, what evidence did said panel member actually examine? Given there was surely nothing to actually support the referee's decision, did the panel member - who does this all by videolink - even look at it at all?

    And the obvious extrapolation from that is to ask: how do we actually know whether in any situation like this the panel members actually do their job?

    Actually I suspect the statement, which came straight from Chief Executive Ian Maxwell, is likely to be somewhat economical with the truth. After all, Keatingsgate (which should be a swanky borough in London populated by Russian oligarchs) had gone viral, aided by a club statement denouncing the SFA which, unusually for Scottish football, managed to get the mix of eloquence, passion and downright evisceration pretty much spot on.


    Once Gary Lineker had retweeted the footage to his 7.5 million Twitter followers, it was clear that the traditional SFA tactic for dealing with bad publicity - hiding in Hampden Park with their fingers stuck in their ears whilst shouting "LA LA LA I'M NOT LISTENING" at the top of their voice until everyone has given up and gone away - wasn't going to work.

    This was a proper omnishambles. Maxwell therefore needed to go full Malcolm Tucker and find a positive fix. This invented technicality did the job nicely. Now justice is done; Keatings gets to play in the Challenge Cup Final, we get an answer to the philosophical question of how many wrongs make a right and the footballing gods can get on with ensuring the player picks up an injury in the next few weeks so that he ironically misses the match anyway.

    And Maxwell will be hoping that all's well that ends well.

    The trouble is that whatever the truth of the Keatings saga it has once more laid bare the appalling lack of governance within the Scottish Football Association. In terms of the actual disciplinary system, seeds of doubt have been irrevocably planted in the process from hereon in.

    Maxwell's worst nightmare is that in the coming weeks someone rather more high profile is involved in a decision that requires a disciplinary panel hearing (I'm trying - and failing - to avoid using 'an Alfredo Morelos dive' as the example) and the outcome is that the player is punished.

    There's no way in hell the 'victim's' club won't be all over this like a rash, questioning the behaviour and integrity of the panel members and demanding proof they have done their jobs. It's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility that legal opinions would be sought. The mild headache caused by Keatings would become a full-blown migraine, but Maxwell wouldn't be able to hide in a dark bedroom for two days to sleep it off.

    And so the SPFL will surely see this as an opportunity. It would be nice to believe that the public support of Motherwell and Hibernian and the private support of others was out of generosity but it is very much in their own interests to take on the SFA. At the very least it can force reform of a disciplinary system which is not fit for purpose. With the organization already under pressure because of the poor performances of the national team - including Maxwell's failure to support Steve Clarke in getting domestic matches moved ahead of the pivotal Euro 2020 playoffs - the old boys network that has led to Rod Petrie becoming the organization's president, and Henry McLeish's criticism of how his review a decade ago has been largely discarded, this could be seen as a chance to discredit the SFA and take more control - even take control - of the direction of the governing body's direction.

    After all, it's not even especially clear what the SFA stands for (apart from Sweet F*** All, hur hur hur). That apparent lack of modus operandi is exactly why Scottish football feels directionless. Because it is.

    I don't think making it work for the benefit of the clubs is good for the game going forward, but it certainly can't be any worse than a status quo which appears to consist of milking the Tartan Army to pay for shiny blazers, big dinners and jaunts abroad.

    Doing the right thing by James Keatings might, ultimately, prove to have been a very wrong move. For closing his case has just opened a great big can of worms.


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.
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  20. hislopsoffsideagain
    On the one hand, it must be noted that these figures are essentially a year old, as they are for the 2018/19 season. There can also be pretty legitimate reasons for clubs either losing money or not making as much as expected, such as investment in infrastructure.

    On the other hand, we now have access to the 2018/19 season accounts for eighteen of Scotland's twenty-two full-time SPFL clubs (assuming no-one is counting Airdrie as full-time yet). We also have an idea of what's to come in two other sets. Of those twenty clubs, just eight turned a profit last season. Most of those eight come with a caveat of sorts as well. The rest were in the red, and in a number of cases spectacularly so.

    That can't be healthy.

    Today let's take a closer look at the twelve clubs that were in the 2018/19 Premiership. If I get round to it, I'll put up a further post looking at the state of play in the lower tiers.


    SOME THOUGHTS FIRST
    There's nothing to suggest that any of these clubs are in imminent financial distress (though as explained in the link further on the situation at Rangers is complicated to say the least). There are two areas of concern that I can see.

    The first is what it takes for clubs to run a profit, full stop. It seems that, if a club finishes in the league position one would expect given their budget, only gets through a round or two in the cups and doesn't sell a player for at least a high six-figure fee - a realistic outcome, basically - they will lose money. I can't see how that is a good thing in the long-term. It also means that clubs are running to stand still, in that they are having to budget higher than they really should just to keep themselves at the level they are at, in the hope that they hit the jackpot in one of the above areas every so often.

    The second is the potential effect of relegation. The experience of recently demoted sides is that turnover falls by about a third on going down. Long-term player contracts are not all that common at all but the biggest Scottish clubs so often a rapid cut in the playing budget is possible, but that in itself is rarely sufficient to deal with such a rapid drop in income. Those clubs struggling to break even as it is would face proper trouble if they ended up in the Championship.

    (addendum - almost at the same time as this blog was published, this story about the potential effect of coronavirus on Scottish football clubs went up. Given the high dependence of gate receipts, I can absolutely believe this would cause significant problems.)

    Onwards...

    IN PROFIT
    CELTIC
    TURNOVER: £83.4m (2017/18: £101.6m)
    PROFIT: £8.7m (2017/18: £17.3m)

    Celtic made a profit of £11m on transfers in 2018/19, which meant they were still profitable despite their turnover taking a big hit from missing out on the Champions League. That's the way of it for them at the moment - either get to the Group Stage or make up the shortfall by selling a player, as they have done again this season with Kieran Tierney. The club also spent a decent amount of cash on infrastructure, such as (shudder) disco lights. With £39m in the bank as of last summer, they are in rude financial health.

    HEARTS
    TURNOVER: £15.1m (2017/18: £12.1m)
    PROFIT: £1.6m (2017/18: £1.8m)

    Hearts' staff costs for last season were £8.2m, which puts them fourth in Scotland. Whilst their profit looks impressive, they received £3.25m in donations and Ann Budge described it as "a challenging year on and off the pitch".


    HIBERNIAN
    TURNOVER: not known yet (2017/18: £9.5m)
    PROFIT: £2m (2017/18: £214k)

    That profit looks juicy for Hibs, who haven't yet published their accounts but had their AGM at the end of February. But it comes off £2.8m of profit in the transfer market thanks to the sale of John McGinn. New owner Ron Gordon said himself that "without the McGinn money, the club would have made a significant loss".

    But Gordon has paid off the club's mortgage and invested a seven figure sum that leaves them with £5.5m in the bank. That looks like a pretty decent platform to build from. He has made it clear that he intends Hibs to be profitable going forward...but they all say that, don't they?


    KILMARNOCK
    TURNOVER: £6.6m (2017/18: £5.1m)
    PROFIT: £126k (2017/18: loss of £180k)

    Given Killie finished third in the table, I expected profits to be higher than this; if they had come fourth, they would have posted a loss. They do seem to have spent a fair bit on infrastructure - not least the laying of a new artificial pitch, and the wages to turnover ratio is fine. Apparently the budget was increased for this season, which means it will be interesting to see what effect a lower league finish and the binning of Angelo Alessio has on finances going forward.


    LIVINGSTON
    TURNOVER: not known yet (2017/18: £1.4m)
    PROFIT: not known yet (2017/18: £46k)

    I'm told by Livingston fans that Chief Executive John Ward has recently said the club made a small profit in 2018/19, but accounts have not been filed yet. Their turnover will have jumped spectacularly after their promotion to the Premiership


    ST MIRREN
    TURNOVER: £4.1m (2017/18: £2.8m)
    PROFIT: £99k (2017/18: £77k)

    It's notable that the Buddies made £1m from 'profit on disposal of player registrations' which in fact is their share of the fee for John McGinn's move from Hibs to Aston Villa. Without that, they wouldn't be in profit. That said the Buddies had to pay off Alan Stubbs too. And with the McGinn money coming in early in the season it's likely that it was added to the budget.

    Promotion meant nearly half a million more in gate receipts and £600,000 more in prize money. The total wage bill for staff leapt from £2m to £3.2m which pretty much tied up the whole of the extra income. But they do have nearly £700,000 in the bank for rainy days. The club continues to plan for Fan Ownership, perhaps as soon as 2021.


    LOSSMAKING
    ABERDEEN
    TURNOVER: £15.9m (2017/18: £15.4m)
    LOSSES: £1m (2017/18: £800k)

    The Dons increased their turnover, but increased their losses as well. That's due to a combination of another increase in the wage bill from £8.5m to £9.2m and finishing lower in the league. The good news is that new chairman Dave Cormack has brought in considerable new investment. On the other hand, the move to a new stadium at Kingsford could be delayed till 2023.


    DUNDEE
    TURNOVER: £3.9m (2017/18: £4.6m)
    LOSSES: £1.8m (2017/18: £425k)

    Eek. Dundee have run a loss every single year since Tim Keyes took over the club, and its just as well he doesn't look like turning off the money tap any time soon. Getting rid of two different managers, along with pretty much bringing in an entirely new squad for Jim McIntyre, cost a fortune. Relegation will only reduce income further, and their accounts explain that significant losses are expected for this season and the next, with Keyes underwriting those. That said, with several million quid spaffed up against a wall since 2013, your guess is as good as mine as to where the cash for their proposed new ground will come from.


    MOTHERWELL
    TURNOVER: £4.6m (2017/18: £6.8m)
    LOSSES: £436k (2017/18: profit of £1.7m)

    2017/18 wasn't as successful on the park as 2016/17, and it showed. The wage bill stayed the same but with no cup runs, reduced prize money and reduced player sales (which still totalled £700k, mind) turnover dropped by a whopping 35%. They also spent a significant amount of the previous year's profit on infrastructure. Going forward, 'Well have now paid off loans to John Boyle and Les Hutchison, which leaves them with only £80k in debt now. But its no surprise that the accounts state "it is imperative to the good health and sustainability of Motherwell" that the club continues to do well out of selling on players; hopefully that big fee for David Turnbull will come after all.


    RANGERS
    TURNOVER: £53.2m (2017/18: £32.6m)
    LOSSES: £11.3m (2017/18: £14.3m)

    I wrote about Rangers' financial situation when these were published a few months ago.


    ST JOHNSTONE
    TURNOVER: not reported (2017/18 - not reported)
    LOSSES: £149k (2017/18 - £258k)

    Chairman Steve Brown has been a right sad sack in recent weeks, claiming the club has the sixth highest wage bill in the country (I dispute this) and suggesting losses for 2019/20 will be much higher. St. Johnstone still had £2m in the bank as of last summer which should protect them from any problems in the immediate future.


    NOT KNOWN
    HAMILTON ACCIES publish truncated accounts, as is their wont because of their low turnover. My understanding (which may be wrong) is that they lost nearly £500,000 in 2017/18, mostly because of a vishing scam. The 2018/19 accounts should be better, especially with £240,000 from Aberdeen for Lewis Ferguson.


    I hope this information is useful...and most of all I hope it is right! Please let me know any errors and I'll amend them.

    PS Kieran Maguire, to be found on Twitter at @PriceOfFootball, is the place to go for analysis of club accounts and finances, and covers Scottish clubs just as keenly as English ones.


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.

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  21. hislopsoffsideagain
    In case you haven't noticed, Covid-19 (let's be a bit pedantic and call it that, since there are plenty of other coronaviruses of varying severity, including causes of the common cold) is coming. At the time of writing there are 27 cases in Scotland, but that number is going to increase impressively.

    For what it's worth it seems to me (from my day job perspective as a GP) that the powers that be are dealing with things pretty appropriately at the moment. I'm not an expert in virology or epidemiology (or anything, really) but the advice they're giving right now makes sense to me. And the fact that said advice will change in the next little while as the number of infected people increases also makes sense.

    It does now seems inevitable that some time soon the government will ban large public gatherings. Like, say, football crowds. After all, it's already happening in Ligue 1, La Liga and Primeira Liga. In Italy, where infection rates are higher than anywhere else in Europe, they've gone a step further; all Serie A matches have been postponed till the start of April.

    It's not just the crowds that are the issue. The Premier League has postponed tonight's Manchester City v Arsenal game because Arsenal players have been exposed to someone with Covid-19 and are self-isolating. This will surely become a common issue and matches will have to be called off either one by one or probably en masse.

    And if that's what the experts say should happen here, then so be it. Saving lives is rather more important than twenty-two men chasing a ball.

    If/when that happens, there will be significant knock-on effects for Scottish football.

    More than anywhere else in Europe, Scottish clubs are dependent on matchday income. Postponing matches means that they won't see that cash till further down the road. Playing them behind closed doors means no cash at all.

    Football finance expert Kieran Maguire gave this take on how it will play out for English League One and League Two clubs, which is pretty comparable. By this time of year season ticket proceeds have been spent and clubs are dependent on what they can get from walk-up fans and away supporters, as well as food, programme sales etc. Not many have a rainy day fund to get through this sort of situation.

    It's also possible that clubs will be obliged to refund season ticket holders for games they aren't allowed to attend. One would like to think that most supporters would take that on the chin, but you never know. Having to compensate them in any way would be extremely onerous.

    It's certainly possible that a number of clubs who are already living hand-to-mouth - I'm mainly thinking of full-time teams in the Championship and League One - will be in a right fix. Will someone go bust? I hope not. But it must be a possibility.

    The SPFL and SFA have already noted this. As it stands, their intent is to "endeavour to complete the season and fulfil their obligations under their broadcasting agreements". They said that a week ago. It seems wildly optimistic now.

    If matches are to be postponed, when will they be played? Will they be played at all? What on earth will the SPFL do with the rest of the season? Here are the options that seem to be available. None of them are especially palatable...


    SQUEEZE IN ALL THE POSTPONED GAMES BY THE END OF THE SEASON
    Any matches that are called off are fitted in to the remaining available midweek dates. Everything finishes on time and it's all good.

    The problems with this plan: the last day of the domestic season - the Championship playoff final - is 24 May, with the lower leagues finishing their 'regular season' on 2 May and the Premiership finishing on 17 May. If there is a significant fixture backlog, there aren't many dates available for catchup. And if call-offs start happening before the Premiership split, then that could cause a real headache for schedulers.

    Chances of it happening: this is of course the ideal solution for everyone, but it seems increasinly unlikely circumstances will allow it.


    FINISH THE SEASON EARLY
    Bring forward the end of the season, and declare champions, relegation etc depending on positions at this point. Hearts strongly disapprove of this plan.

    The problems with this plan: obviously there's an element of unfairness. It's also not clear how you would manage cup finals and playoffs in these circumstances. And clubs would miss out on income from their last few home matches.

    Chances of it happening: there would be a significant outcry about 'sporting integrity' which would probably derail this. And the financial knock-on would also be a big problem. It is however the simplest solution, if not necessarily the fairest.


    EXTEND THE SEASON INTO THE SUMMER
    If matches aren't finished by the end of May, just keep playing into June...and onwards, if necessary.

    The problems with this plan: for a start, plenty of clubs have players only contracted till the end of May or even a few weeks before that in the case of lower division teams. Broadcasting and sponsorship agreements also expire around that time. There's also Euro 2020 (if it goes ahead as planned) and the need for players to get an appropriate break before the start of next season which would normally be scheduled for mid-July.

    Chances of it happening: this would probably cause as many problems as it would solve. Perhaps an option if other countries were doing it, but it would require major changes in the calendar for next season.


    LOTS OF PLAYOFFS
    The Italians have mooted deciding the title and relegation via playoff matches. It would certainly make for good TV.

    The problems with this plan: Celtic are never going to agree to a playoff for the league, given their current points advantage. And how do you decide what teams should go into the relegation playoffs in any given league?

    Chances of it happening: can't see it.


    CALL THE SEASON OFF
    Declare the 2019/20 season null and void. Don't award the league title to anyone. Don't have promotion or relegation. Start over next season with clubs in the same divisions they are now. Hearts strongly approve of this plan.

    The problems with this plan: who wants to volunteer to tell Celtic fans that nine-in-a-row is cancelled? There are also repercussions for clubs such as Dundee United, who would be stuck in the second tier for yet another year having spent significantly to get up to the top flight.

    Chances of it happening: unlikely, unless the rest of Europe is doing the same thing.


    CANCEL RELEGATION BUT ALLOW PROMOTION
    Get around the idea of stopping the season early being unfair on clubs at the bottom of the table by announcing relegation would be scrapped, but allow promotion to take place anyway so no-one is disadvantaged (much). Obviously it would be sensible to promote the team currently second in the Championship since the playoffs wouldn't happen (wink, wink).

    The problems with this plan: you'd end up with having to deal with a 14 team top flight for at least a season, which would be a whole new issue.

    Chances of it happening: pretty much zero, since only a half-crazed Caley Thistle-supporting blogger would even think of it, let alone support it.



    In conclusion, this is going to be a real headache for Scottish football - and for football in general - to deal with. For us, it'll probably be a case of doing what England and other countries do. Normally I would grate at that, but in this case following everyone else's lead is probably the best way forward. That's assuming of course that everyone else agrees on a way to go forward.

    And most importantly, if this is the price to pay for helping the country and the world get through this crisis, then so be it. Remember that Bill Shankly quote - "Some people think football is a matter of life and death...I can assure them it is much more serious than that."? Bear in mind that he was joking.


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.

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  22. hislopsoffsideagain
    It's been, what, two weeks without football? The withdrawal is already so bad that I gave in to the Football Manager 2020 free trial; after 12 years on the wagon I'm now obsessing about how to get Weymouth out of the National League South. Either I pay full whack for the game or I face being locked in my childhood bedroom for a week being fed nothing but pea soup. Choose life, choose a job, choose a career, choose '4-2-4 wing play custom route one'.

    But my tremors and nightsweats are nothing compared to those of the people who actually run football clubs. Forget the crazy schemes like secluding Premier League squads in the midlands for a month to play matches behind closed doors in order to keep the nation from cracking each other's heads open to feast on the goo inside. It'll be fecking months before we're even allowed jumpers for goalposts again.

    That's if, in the post-covid 19 world, there's actually any football to go back to. Given that giants such as Barcelona and Juventus are having to agree wage cuts/deferrals with players, what hope is there for Scottish clubs? Will they all have gone bust by the time we return to a semblance of normality?

    The challenges they face are pretty similar: paying wages (and other outgoings like council tax) whilst having no income.

    The sums involved are of course a bit more modest than those regarding Leo Messi and co. At one extreme end of the SPFL scale there is Celtic, whose staff costs for 2018/19 were £56.4m. Only Rangers and Aberdeen also have staff costs above £10m/year. Hearts and Hibs are not far off that, while most of the other Premiership clubs are under £5m/year. The smallest full-time sides, in the Championship and at the top of League One, are at closer to £1m or even less.

    At the other end are the part-timers. Winger, teacher and blogger Danny Denholm, now plying his trade at East Fife, wrote in the December 2018 edition of Nutmeg Magazine that the average League One wage was between £100 and £300/week. There are some players *cough* Rory McAllister *cough* who will be on far more than that.

    There's also the awkward situation with player contracts, many of which will expire in May or June at a point that is still some way away from a return to football. It's likely that FIFA and/or UEFA will agree a blanket move to extend contracts a few months. If this doesn't happen there will be a few clubs disadvantaged, as some players will surely take the chance to jump ship and join another club as per usual. Those however will be dwarfed by the number of players who are released to save money and who will find it very difficult to find another team until the footie actually starts again.

    In one sense the smaller clubs might be better protected. The government's furlough scheme, which clubs should be eligible for, will pay 80% of wages up to a total of £2500/month. That should cover any player earning £3,100/month or less - which extrapolates to about £700/week, a figure that should be cover most players from the Championship (those not based in the City Of Discovery, anyway) down.

    Maybe that's how Caley Thistle - not exactly awash with cash - can pledge to pay staff who earn under £24,000/year - essentially those who would be covered by the government scheme - in full with higher paid staff taking a 20% cut, and Partick Thistle can guarantee all staff wages up till the end of May.

    Yet there's still Raith Rovers, one of League One's full-time clubs, starting a fundraising drive, while Peterhead, Montrose, Dumbarton and Elgin City are amongst the part-time teams whose players are taking wage cuts. The bottom line is that these clubs have very little cash in terms of cash reserves in the bank and are heavily dependent on gate money - even more so at this time of the season when season ticket cash has long been spent.

    At the other end of the scale are Hearts, whose players have been asked to take a 50% pay cut or terminate their contracts. Defender Clevid Dikamona, who took the chance to return to his family in France but holds out hope of returning next season, is so far the only player to take the latter option. I may be being harsh but I feel like a business with an annual turnover of £15m should be more resilient. Then again, the Jambos were supposedly paying some players a crazy £6,000/week.

    Most Premiership players will be on deals which, while not as daft as that, are more expensive than that covered by the government and therefore only a smaller percentage will be covered. So whilst no other top flight sides have yet commented publicly on wage cuts, it would be a surprise if it didn't happen sooner or later, possibly in agreement with PFA Scotland. After all, Aberdeen have admitted they'll lose £1.2m a month as it stands.

    We're also coming into the period of the year where season tickets for next season normally go on sale. Some clubs are already cracking on as per usual, hoping fans won't mind paying full whack even when it's not clear how many games they'll be watching and when they'll be. You'd think that sales will be markedly lower both for this reason and because plenty of fans have their own money worries right now.

    So which clubs should we be concerned about?

    All forty-two have at least cleared the first (admittedly, not very high) hurdle of paying March's wages, though some of the above-mentioned clubs may have implicated cuts as part of this. But we're only a fortnight into this. The situation will be far clearer in a month's time.

    It is a bit simplistic but not entirely unreasonable to assume clubs who have a rich sugar daddy - the Dundee clubs, Ross County and Hibernian come to mind - have more resilience. And if you have £39million just resting in your account, you'll be fine. By the end of this, Peter Lawwell may be sleeping on a smaller pile of money, mind.

    It might also be presumptuous to conclude Hearts are in trouble given their swift actions. Perhaps they're just the ones quickest off the mark. Or perhaps I'm being overly generous.

    There's also the red, white and blue elephant in the room. It's only a few months since Rangers stated that they required £10m to get them through the season. Their Europa League run will certainly have helped there but it seems that hopes of significant outside investment have evaporated. There are still some very wealthy people involved there though who have not been shy of providing interest-free loans that end up as equity further down the line. And there's also a huge fanbase who will surely not hold back when season ticket sales commence.

    So with a bit of common sense and a combination of prudence and government support, hopefully everyone will come out of this if not unscathed then only slightly wounded. Here's to hoping, anyway...


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.

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  23. hislopsoffsideagain
    This is the eighth season we've done this.

    Whilst football has come to a standstill I don't believe it entitles these players (or the clubs that signed them) a stay of execution. The halt to matches has probably spared some - particularly January arrivals) - from appearing on this list simply because there wasn't enough evidence of them being crap. But that didn't mean we were short of folk to choose from...


    As a reminder, here are the previous seven 'winners':
    2012/13 - Rory Boulding (Kilmarnock) 2013/14 - Stephane Bahoken (St. Mirren) 2014/15 - Jim Fenlon (Ross County) 2015/16 - Rodney Sneijder (Dundee United) 2016/17 - Joey Barton (Rangers) 2017/18 - Eduardo Herrera (Rangers) 2018/19 - Umar Sadiq (Rangers)
    Let's start things off with a countdown from 25 to 11...

    25. JAMES WILSON (ABERDEEN)
    The first player to appear on this list two years in a row, on the rather dubious grounds that he was only a rubbish loan signing last season for the Dons and was then inexplicably signed permanently last summer. Hey, I don't make the rules...well, actually, I do. Wilson, who will have been on a decent contract, failed to score in sixteen appearances this season and left in January for Salford City, where he scored twice on his debut - one more goal than he managed in the whole of 2019.


    24. KOREDE ADEDOYIN (HAMILTON ACCIES)

    The traditional even-the-club's-own-fans-didn't-know-he-was-playing-for-them player. Signed on loan from Everton, the teenage forward played ninety minutes for Accies' Colts in the Challenge Cup, which was ninety more minutes than he played for the first team. When he returned south in January, Hamilton's website stated it was due to "tough competition for places", which given the quality of the club's attacking options, means he really can't have been very good.


    23. GLENN MIDDLETON (HIBERNIAN)

    This looked like such a good move on paper; exciting young winger Middleton had looked the part in a few cameos at Rangers and would get plenty of playing time in an ascending Hibs side. Except Hibs were heading in the wrong direction and Middleton was dragged along with them. After Paul Heckingbottom's dismissal he never played again, with Jack Ross seemingly writing him off instantly. Half a season of a talented youngster's development wasted.


    22. EWAN HENDERSON (ROSS COUNTY)
    Half a season of a talented youngster's development wasted, part deux. Why Celtic and Ross County thought stylish midfielder Henderson would be a good fit in County's somewhat agricultural midfield I have no idea. He made only six starts and was recalled to Glasgow in January. Worse, he had made a substitute appearance for Celtic in a Champions League qualifier - in the ninetieth minute - which meant Celtic couldn't loan him out to someone else for the second half of the season (not that, in hindsight, that would have meant much action).


    21. RYAN SCHOFIELD (LIVINGSTON)
    When Matija Sarkic was unexpectedly recalled by his parent club during the winter break, Livi were suddenly left without a competent keeper (no, Ross Stewart doesn't count). By the end of the window they'd ended up with both Schofield and Robby McCrorie, with McCrorie as first choice. Schofield signed first, but a combination of a (short-term) injury in his first game and the unexpected availability of Rangers prospect McCrorie on loan led Gary Holt back into the market and left the Huddersfield keeper somewhat surplus to requirements. Schofield did get to play in the Scottish Cup (as McCrorie was cuptied), but was partly culpable for the only goal in a defeat at Inverness.


    20. HARVEY ST. CLAIR (KILMARNOCK)
    You'd think an ex-Chelsea youth, Scottish under-21 forward who started matches for parent club Venezia in Serie B last year would make more than three appearances for Kilmarnock, wouldn't you? Your guess is as good as mine as to what's gone wrong here. There have been no reports of injuries and he has occasionally been an unused sub but the youngster, who was apparently wanted by Rangers last summer, has offered practically nothing to Killie's season.


    19. CECE PEPE (LIVINGSTON)
    "Cece is an out and out defender and likes to defend, good on the ball, physical and has a bit of pace." Gary Holt was very bullish about the Frenchman on his arrival last June. But he made only two sub appearances in the league before picking up a calf injury in October that has hobbled him since. Livi are not exactly short of strength or depth in central defence now, especially after picking up Efe Ambrose, and it remains to be seen whether Pepe will see out the second season of his two year contract.


    18. WALLACE DUFFY (ST. JOHNSTONE)
    Unlike many of the players on this list, Duffy has seen plenty of action; he has started 14 games for St. Johnstone. However, after ten league starts at right-back or centre-back in which Saints conceded 26 goals, his demotion to the bench at the start of December coincided with them racing up the table. Time will tell if Duffy, who has just turned 21, still has room for improvement or whether he just isn't up to Premiership standard.


    17. BRANDON BARKER (RANGERS)
    With Jordan Jones, Jake Hastie and Sheyi Ojo all arriving last summer (and Ryan Kent soon to return) its not clear why Steven Gerrard wanted yet another wide player, or why he wanted Barker who had hardly set the heather alight in a year at Easter Road in the 2017/18 season. Curiously, two of his four starts for Rangers have been against Porto in the Europa League; however he has mainly been a substitute. The decision to give him a three year deal looks weirder and weirder as time goes on.


    16. DONIS AVDIJAJ (HEARTS)
    There was plenty of hype about the impending arrival of the Kosovan international in January, but his previous issues at other clubs and his decision to wear the '99' shirt (players with daft numbers like that are always for the watching) were red flags. When he joined, the winger declared "there is no country, no city in the world where I don't score. I score everywhere." At Tynecastle, he could barely even get a game.


    15. SIMON POWER (ROSS COUNTY)
    The Irish wideman joined Kings Lynn Town in England's sixth tier in January; this is apparently more his level than the Scottish Premiership. Power's loan from Norwich to Dingwall looked like a bit of coup given he played in the 2019 Toulon Tournament and had apparently impressed Lyon and Borussia Dortmund. He certainly didn't impress County fans, given he was trusted with just seven minutes of league action in his spell in the Highlands.


    14. OSMAN SOW (KILMARNOCK)
    Remember when Sow was so awesome for Hearts that they sold him for a million quid? That feels like long ago. The Swedish striker has struggled for fitness ever since he returned to Scotland with Dundee United and spent the first half of this campaign on loan at goal-lite Killie. Sow started only two matches and failed to score, even missing a penalty against Ross County. He never looked on the pace at all there, but actually broke back into the United lineup on his return to Tannadice...only to rupture his achilles tendon at the start of February.


    13. IBRAHIM SAVANE (LIVINGSTON)
    Two year deal. Two sub appearances. Thirty-one minutes of first team action. Away after three months. The Guinean left-back apparently struggled dreadfully with homesickness, though Livi rather unkindly noted on his departure that he "really struggled to adapt to Scottish football".


    12. ADRIAN BECK (HAMILTON ACCIES)
    Powerful German midfielder Beck joined Hamilton on loan from a Belgium second division team with Brian Rice claiming "he's very sharp on the ball. I think he will settle well in Scotland." Apparently not, given Beck started only two games and had his deal cut short in January. He's now playing in the German regional leagues. Gloriously, Beck has recently whinged to the German press about Scottish football being rubbish, involving only "high and wide balls" which were "not my idea of football". He also claimed Rice didn't pick him because he wasn't British. Aye, sure...
    11. JORDAN JONES (RANGERS)
    Jones was terrific at Kilmarnock but it always looked likely that Rangers would be too much of a step up for him. And so it has proved. Whilst he has made the odd start and a few sub appearances, Jones' first season at Rangers looks likely to be remembered only for getting himself stupidly sent off for hacking Moritz Bauer against Celtic in a match that was already lost, and injuring himself for the next three months in the process. It's hard to see him having a long-term future at Ibrox.


    The top ten will be with you soon enough...


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.
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  24. hislopsoffsideagain
    Part one of this, which counts down from 25 to 11, can be found here.

    As ever, the top ten is dominated by whichever club has drastically underachieved that season. No prizes for guessing which side occupies more spots than any other, though not the top one. And for the first time in four seasons, it isn't a Rangers player who 'leads' these standings.

    Onward...


    10. SIMEON JACKSON (KILMARNOCK) The Canadian international hardly impressed at St. Mirren last season, but Kilmarnock were so desperate for strikers - and for numbers, given how threadbare their squad was - that they took a chance on the 32 year old on a short-term deal in October. Angelo Alessio claimed he was very similar to Eamonn Brophy, and he is...apart from the goals, and the pace, and the work-rate. One start and three sub appearances later he was off to Stevenage.


    9. JOEL CASTRO PEREIRA (HEARTS) The funny thing is that a few years ago Joel Pereira was highly enough thought of that he was part of the Portugal squad at the 2016 Olympics and started a Premier League game for Manchester United in 2017. But that was then and this is now. And now the Swiss-born goalie has clearly not fulfilled his potential. I accept that there is a need these days for a keeper being able to use his feet, but not at the expense of using his hands. Pereira seemed allergic to making his saves; his poor positioning was found out frequently and when he did get his gloves to the ball it was only to parry it out directly in front of him, often straight to the nearest opponent. He was so rotten that he's made Zdenek Zlamal - Zdenek Zlamal! - look like a reliable alternative.


    8. OAN DJORKAEFF (ST. MIRREN) Expectations were probably too high because of his famous father Youri, but the young midfielder was considered good enough to play all St. Mirren's League Cup group games. The problem is that these included a loss to Dunfermline and draws with East Kilbride and Albion Rovers, proving to Jim Goodwin that he needed to upgrade his team fast. Djorkaeff managed just five minutes of first team football after the first week of the league season, and spent so much time as an unused substitute - sixteen games - that he there is probably a Djorkaeff-shaped dent in the St. Mirren bench. He spent January training with Queen of the South but didn't win a contract...but apparently didn't leave Paisley either. At least we think he didn't, though he hasn't been seen since so it's hard to know.


    7. LOIC DAMOUR (HEARTS) Craig Levein had wanted Loic Damour last January, and clearly wanted him badly given that the Frenchman was awarded a four year contract at Tynecastle. It's only two seasons since he was a useful part of the Cardiff team that got promoted to the Premier League but Jambos haven't seen any of that. Instead they've had to view a midfielder who has been ponderous in and out of possession and who has shown a remarkable talent only for giving the ball away. Hearts actually tried to move him on in January but he's still there with no signs that Daniel Stendel can redeem him.


    6. JOSH VELA (HIBERNIAN) Vela's signing certainly looked good on paper. The versatile midfielder had been a constant for Bolton over several years in the Championship before coming north and Paul Heckingbottom had plans to use his energy in a box-to-box role. Unfortunately, said energy seemed to have been left behind in Lancashire. Heckingbottom's last match - a thumping by Celtic in the League Cup semi - was also Vela's, with his particularly turgid display summing up his time at Easter Road. He never played a game under Jack Ross and moved to Shrewsbury in January.


    5. MORITZ BAUER (CELTIC) Bauer's deadline day signing on loan from Stoke was clearly aimed at improving Celtic's depth at right-back. One suspects there was a decent fee involved as part of it. But the Austrian has rarely been seen on the park. Part of that is because Celtic have done fine at the position with Jeremie Frimpong's rapid emergence and formation tinkering that has seen both Kristoffer Ajer and James Forrest on that side of the pitch, and part of that is because Bauer hasn't really been great when he has been in action. He's been a dud, and probably an expensive one, but it hasn't exactly impacted negatively on Celtic's season.


    4. ANDY KING (RANGERS) Like Bauer, King's lack of impact hasn't really damaged Rangers in any way other than in the financial sense; the club will have paid a significant chunk of the Welshman's wages for the four months or so he was at Ibrox. The move didn't even make sense at the time given Steven Gerrard already had plenty of options in midfield. Five substitute appearances and a total of 70 minutes on the pitch later, he returned south. If (as I'm sure I saw somewhere, unless I dreamt it) he cost about £20,000/week, those twenty weeks he was in Scotland were very, very expensive.


    3. GLENN WHELAN (HEARTS) There's a fine line between being 'experienced' and being 'past it'. Hearts were hoping that 35 year old Glenn Whelan was the former but he rather looked like the latter. Not that he would acknowledge it; the Irishman would later claim that "my form was good for the last few months" of Craig Levein's tenure. That's somewhat at odds with what everyone else thought. He complained that people said "that I didn't fancy it, that I was laying down the tools". That'll be because that's exactly what it looked like. Daniel Stendel, on being asked about the veteran's leadership qualities, responded with "a real leader in the centre of the pitch? Sorry, maybe I missed it." Ouch. The funny thing is he was still getting picked for Ireland during his time at Tynecastle and he's fitted in nicely at Fleetwood Town since signing for them in January. So chances are he was afflicted by the same malaise as everyone else at Hearts, rather than a cause of it.


    2. CASPER SLOTH (MOTHERWELL) One unkind Twitter user suggested Sloth looked happier in the departure lounge of Edinburgh Airport, awaiting his flight to Copenhagen, than he did at any point of his spell at Fir Park. The Danish international midfielder's arrival on a two year deal looked like a coup for Motherwell, a player whose career had stalled in the last couple of seasons and who could really shine in the SPFL. Stephen Robinson championed "not only his ability on the park, but his desire (and) his hunger to be here". We'll have to take his word for it, as Sloth made just a single League Cup appearance. When he was mutually consented in January, Robinson was at least generous enough to credit him with "pushing on younger players in his position to excel". If you say so, Stephen...


    1. MADIS VIHMANN (ST. JOHNSTONE) St. Johnstone's defence was hoaching in the first half of the season. So what does that say about a central defender who, even when they were dreadful and desperate, Tommy Wright could not bring himself to play? Lanky Estonian international Vihmann signed a season-long loan deal in July, but his debut saw the Perth Saints embarrassed by Forfar and his next appearance was a 7-0 humiliation at Celtic Park. Vihmann made just three more appearances. He left McDiarmid Park in January. We'll never see his like again - literally, as he announced his retirement "for personal reasons" just a few days later, at the age of just 24.


    Hopefully there'll be another edition of this next year...though that would require us having some football to actually watch first. Fingers crossed...


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.
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  25. hislopsoffsideagain
    The phrase 'club statement' now fills one with almost as much dread as 'root canal surgery', or 'Andy Halliday at left-back'. There have been exceptions - Stenhousemuir and Kelty Hearts leading the way - but most cases have involved people who think they're cleverer than they are and who have too much time on their hands using the word 'dignity' whilst throwing it away spectacularly in a multi-paragraphed ranting word salad.


    It would be nice to think that the result of today's vote on having an independent inquiry might bring a break from these lunatic pronouncements. The number of clubs in favour of such an inquiry - thirteen - was higher than I expected but not high enough even to hint at a general lack of confidence in the league, let alone actually triumph.

    Whether it does so or not now depends on whether those who still have an axe to grind find other avenues of attack. A previous suggestion by Rangers of going to CAS sounds more like desperation from a slightly unhinged supporter on an internet forum than a real possibility. However Hearts may well feel the cost of relegation is high enough to justify risking a legal challenge. I've long wondered whether this might throw a spanner in the works not necessarily because the Jambos would win but by holding up the start of the 2020/21 season long enough that the other side has to back down. One shudders at the thought of what animosity would develop should this scenario occur.
    Whichever side of the divide you come down on - and, depressingly, it has been treated by too many as a case of being either pro-Rangers or anti-Rangers when there is so, so much more at stake here - there is a compelling argument here that letting things get so out of control is evidence that there is a total failure of leadership at the SPFL. A competent organization would have largely ignored the Rangers dossier and kept quiet until, as was always inevitable, they won the vote on an independent inquiry.
    Instead MacLennan, Neil Doncaster and other members of the board have come out all guns blazing, throwing allegations back at their accusers and keeping the pot boiling over instead of turning the heat off. They may feel that they are entitled to do so given the personal nature of some of the attacks but they've been impugned before and still managed to take it on the chin,
    After all, Doncaster earns his £350,000 salary as Chief Executive not because of outstanding business acumen but because he has proven willing, for that money, to be the face of the organization and therefore the target and lightning rod for criticism. He has had plenty of that over the years without resorting to an almost permanent slot on BBC Radio Scotland to defend himself; why change that now?
    The thing is, there's so much childish mud-slinging going around that it is becoming increasingly easy to forget the trigger for this whole palava - the farce over Dundee's vote on bringing the lower leagues to an end. I'm quite prepared to believe that one man's 'bullying' could be another's 'robust conversations', given emotions will have been running high. I'm also prepared to accept that getting 42 different clubs who are almost all entirely fixated only on their own short-term self-interests - I think putting that in bold was justified - to agree on something may well require a bit of harassing and harrying with strong-worded reminders about potential ramifications and with artificial deadlines.
    But whilst Doncaster and co. would no doubt argue that they have done nothing illegal that is not the same as doing nothing wrong. There was publishing the result of the April vote before everyone had voted. There was allowing (and effectively encouraging) Dundee to change their vote. There was openly offering the reconstruction carrot and then putting so many cooks into the working group that there was no way in hell the broth would be edible, all the while being quite aware that Premiership clubs would torpedo any plan regardless.

    But Doncaster survives because he is still, to enough clubs, a useful idiot. At any given time the status quo suits a large enough number that reform and progress is impossible. This has been the case for several years and there is no reason to expect this will change, especially because of the arcane decision-making system - what the league calls 'democracy' - where potentially three clubs in one division can shoot down a motion supported by the other thirty-nine.

    Whether reconstruction would have actually been a positive move in the short-term or the long-term is still open to debate - not least because it feels like it hasn't properly been debated. If it is true that this has just been a distraction from the much, much bigger problem - the fact that clubs can't play football currently, don't know when they will be able to play or under what conditions, and might go bust before that day comes - then the SPFL now should have no excuses for being fully focussed.

    But there will be considerable battles ahead here. There will be questions of closed-doors matches, player safety, supporter access and safety and probably plenty more. There will be a myriad of opinions, and a myriad of different needs. And ultimately the league will need to get the vast majority of the clubs to agree on a plan to tackle this enormous crisis.

    Good luck with that, lads.

    Still, it could be worse. Imagine if John Nelms was on the board: he'd have probably given away the TV rights for magic beans.


    Lawrie Spence has whinged about Scottish football on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly.
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