SPL 2010/11: The Season Starts Here!

Rangers get ready to recieve the championship trophy for season 2009/10

Barring Celtic’s abortive European Cup campaign, Hibernian’s abortive UEFA Cup campaign, Motherwell’s run in the same competition and Wednesday’s defeat in Sweden, the 2010/11 football season begins in earnest on Saturday with the start of the Scottish Premier League (with apologies to the Scottish Football League who started last week).  With all of the action which has occurred already, this must be the smallest close season in living memory.

Aiming for a hat trick of championships are Rangers, who like last year have not added to their squad.  However they have lost seven of their squad, with Thompson and Boyd making the move to Middlesbrough, and Danny Wilson making the switch to Liverpool. However the transfer of Kevin Thompson is arguably the only transfer involving a key player.  Weir will be around for another year, and will be supplemented by the returning Andy Webster, and Boyd was firmly second pick for the key games Rangers played.  In Walter Smith’s last season, Rangers have the necessary experience to win the Championship.

At the other side of Glasgow, Celtic have been busy in the transfer market.  After finally confirming the appointment of Neil Lennon as Manager after his caretaker stint.  Celtic have brought in Joe Ledley from Cardiff, and Charlie Mulgrew from Aberdeen.  However they have lost the “Holy Goalie” Artur Boric.  The questions posed for Celtic are the same ones from 12 months ago; can they pull a new side together under a new coach and overhaul Rangers.  The Omens are not good for Celtic, who have sacked their previous “inexperienced” coaches (Liam Brady after 2 years, John Barnes within 6 months).  I take Rangers to win by between 4-7 points.
Elsewhere, Dundee United have pretty much kept their Scottish Cup winning team intact (save for the aforementioned Andy Webster), Hearts have rather shockingly bought in Scottish players in the shape of the former Falkirk captain Darren Barr and Kilmarnock’s Kevin Kyle, while Aberdeen have brought Paul Hartley back from exile in Bristol.  Those three teams, as well as Hibernian, should be in the running for third.

The tightest battle over recent years has been the battle to avoid the drop, with Inverness Caley dropping down on goal difference in 2009 and Falkirk loosing out by a point in May.  Inverness are back in the top flight, the first team to bounce straight back up since Hib’s flew through the First Division in 1998/99.  They might find themselves at the bottom end once again, but should see themselves safe come the end of the season.

Calderwood celebrate's Kilmarnock's survival against Falkirk

The weakest squad on paper is St Mirren’s.  Their dismissal of Gus MacPherson, is one that gathered criticism among the media, but among the supporters, the opinion was that Gus’s teams looked more and more stale as the weeks went on. In his place, St Mirren have brought in the highly rated Danny Lennon from Cowdenbeath.  The problem for many journalists is that Danny has also brought 4 players from Cowdenbeath, as well as bringing back Marc McAusland from Queen Of The South and David Van Zanten from Hamilton.  St Mirren’s survival depends on the ability of the lower league players to step up to Premier League level, which to be honest is not as big a step up as most sports writers seem to think.

Hamilton have lost the talented James McArthur, their survival depends on their much vaunted conveyor belt of talent continuing.  I suspect that this will be a difficult season for Hamilton, and for Kilmarnock, who brought in Mixu Paatelainen to replace Jimmy Calderwood as Manager.  I think that the team to go down will come from those four, and I think that once again it will be too close to call.

More than most, Scottish football needs to come out and provide a season to remember, it needs to show that it was watching the events in South Africa, and that notes were being taken about technique and attacking football.  Above all Scottish football needs to realise that for the third season on the spin, the Old Firm are vulnerable.  The Old Firm will finish in the top two positions, but a winning mentality and a bit of ruthlesness needs to be shown from the other sides before they can be taken seriously.

The Problem With Scottish Football...

Saturday’s win by Hamilton Accies not only stopped St Mirren’s winning momentum, but once again flagged up St Mirren’s inability to be able to break down defensive teams, or teams which adopt ultra defensive tactics. The Accies tactics provided the starting point of one of those oh so familiar heated debates about the state of Scottish football.

According to several people around me, Scottish football has gone to the dogs because of foreign footballers rolling about the pitch, and being allowed to by our spineless referees. The focus of these fan’s ire was both Paixio and their forward Antoine-Curier, it was Curier’s involvement with the sending off of Lee Mair which set some fans off.

McGinn fluffed a pass and it fell to Curier who before he got on to the ball was dragged back by Mair. It was a sending off because a) Mair was the last man and b) he had his hands all over Curier. Yet there were fans who though Curier had dived. What really disgusted the fans though was the sight of 5 Hamilton players running to congratulate Curier for getting Mair sent off. It was at this point the fans started saying that Scottish football has really gone to the dogs and that they had never seen that happen before “in this country”. Tosh, utter tosh…

Hamilton’s victory was not just based on three very poor defensive errors, but was based on tactical nous and the ability to change the mentality of the team you are playing. It’s this mental toughness which is severely lacking in Scottish Football. Of course a lack of technique is the main factor behind the current slump in Scottish football, but like most sports its not about how good you are, it’s about how good you are upstairs. Yesterday, St Mirren were unable to block out Hamilton’s mind games, and as a result let frustration get the better of them, but hey the tale of Scottish Football is chock full of exactly the same story. The question is when will we learn.

From Zaire in 1974 to our recent games against Macedonia, Scottish teams have been unable to beat with some comfort, teams who tend to play defensive formations, and have seriously struggled against sides who dabble in the black arts of gamesmanship. If we are to look at the bringing up of young players who are able to have technique on the ball, surely we should look at helping those players to be able to cope mentally with the game as well.

It's Sports Personality... Time Again

It has been something of a trend to knock the BBC’s Sports Personality of The Year award, after all like the programme which hosts the award, it is evocative of a bygone era when British sport dominated the world, and the winner of this award really deserved it. The last time the winner was a popular winner was in 2005 when Andrew Flintoff won it. His contribution towards England’s Ashes win was key, scoring crucial runs in the Second and Fourth Tests while taking key wickets throughout the series. Sure Joe Calzhage deserved to win last year, but there was not an outstanding candidate, and Calzhage should have won when Zara Phillips won instead.

This year continues the trend of there not being one outstanding candidate to win the award. Instead there are at least 3 outstanding candidates, with one or two others who would have been a sho-in for the award, were it not for it being an extraordinary Olympic year.

Of the Shortlisted contenders, there are three favourites, and theoretically the winner will be one of the three. Lewis Hamilton became the youngest driver to win the Formula One World Championship. A Hamilton win would continue the line that every British F1 Championship winner has gone on to win this award. However a Hamilton win would be controversial. F1 is not as popular as it was, Hamilton apparently “enjoys” a fractious relationship with his fellow drivers, and his move to Switzerland has not gone down well with a lot of people.

Chris Hoy became the first British athlete to win 3 Olympic gold medals at single games, winning the Kirin, Team Sprint and Sprint events at the Olympic Cycling meeting. Hoy had also won a Cycling gold in Athens in 2004 and silver in Sydney in 2000. On the BBC Sports Editors Blog, there seems an element of antipathy towards Hoy, with a commentator asking where Hoy will be in 4 years. Try the History Books mate. He has also used his new found fame to good effect, campaigning for new funding for the Meadowbank Cycling track (Edinburgh Council were planning to demolish the facility), and for better sporting facilities generally, shooting down the SNP’s claim for a separate Scottish team at the 2012 Olympics. As I said at the time, show us the money.

The only person, I think anyway, who can finish ahead of Hoy is Rebecca Adlington, who won the 400m Freestyle and the 800m at the Olympic Swimming meeting, as well as the 800m Freestyle at the World Championships. Adlington, as well becoming the first female to win a swimming gold since 1960, became the first British female swimmer to win two gold’s at a games. Both wins were memorable for different reasons. Adlington was tipped to win the 800m, but not to smash the record… which she did. The 800m world record was older than Adlington. Her breakthrough came in the 400m, when she won 7/100ths of a second. The American swimmer Katie Hoff was being touted by certain sections of the (American based) media as being the female Michael Phelps. Her loss here had an adverse effect, as she went on to have a terrible meeting. Adlington, on the other hand, went on to charm a nation, and begin plotting for 2012.

In my book, the award will be between these three people, because of the historic context of their achievements. However, with SPOTY being a public vote, anything can happen. Beckham won his award by scoring the goal that only took England to a World Cup finals, and 20 years ago, in another (slightly less successful) Olympic year, the winner of the award was Steve Davis.