SPFL Premiership: Spinning me around

It suddenly strikes me that for the first time in nearly eight years of the Scottish Football Blog, the team I support isn't in Scotland's top division.

(Obviously I have been aware that Hibs are now playing in the Championship, I just hadn't really thought about it in the context of the blog before. More in the context of "why has this happened? Why, why, why?" The answer is, of course, because Hibs were crap.)

The lack of emotional involvement should probably help the blogger go about his or her business with a more professional detachment.

But in my case the blogger watches Sportscene in the pub every Sunday with the disinterested air of the lord of the manor forced into attending the chambermaid's wedding.

Which explains why taking a proper look at the Premiership table tonight left me to conclude, with stunning clarity, "what the actual fu..."

If Hibs have offered little else over the last few seasons it now seems they did at least bring the security of a little sanity to proceedings.

And now what?

Take a look at it. A nonsensical oddity of a league table.

Ross County down there at the bottom. That might not be a massive surprise.

They'll stay there even if they win tomorrow.

But if they lose Inverness will go top with Dundee United.

Unless Hamilton beat Celtic. Then Hamilton will go top.

If Celtic win they'll be on the same points as Hamilton and Kilmarnock.

That's newly promoted Hamilton and the just-avoided-play-off-spot-thanks-to-the-main-striker-who-then-buggered-off Kilmarnock. That Kilmarnock.

What's it all about?

The prediction that will burn millions of pounds if it doesn't happen: Celtic win the Scottish Premiership with a month or so of fixtures to spare.

Ronny Deila's got a hell of a lot to worry about if they don't.

Aberdeen on their current run (four wins out of five games undefeated) should be capable of making a run for second.

Dundee United might curse a lack of consistency in finishing third. That's the same lack of consistency that Jackie McNamara warned of and suffered last season. Biting him on the bum again this season. He needs to sort that.

The rest?

What the hell do you mean "the rest?"

I've got no confidence in the top three, so - Celtic apart - the rest is a horrible mizture-maxture of unknown unknowns.

Ross County don't look likely. I'm not convinced the managerial change will work. But they do love a January transfer window in Dingwall.

I thought St Mirren made a mistake appointing Tommy Craig as manager. Some people are natural assistants. People like Tommy Craig.

Tommy Craig would vehemently disagree with me. This is his chance to prove me - and others - wrong.

And what of Motherwell?

What of Motherwell?

Two wins and a draw from nine games. That's bad form. It can be recovered. But bad form can suck you in and drown you.

I've seen it happen. Believe me, I've seen it happen.

I take part in a SPFL Premiership predictor league at work. When I finished bottom last season I blamed it on my emotional predilection for backing Hibs to win every week.

I got a bottle of Buckfast for my troubles.

I'm struggling along close to the bottom this season as well.

I blame that on the Premiership being a league that has, in the most entertaining way possible, taken leave of its senses.

The best way to deal with that?

Keep smiling, enjoy the ride, celebrate the craziness.

And keep a bottle of Buckie on hand when you're checking your betting slips.

SPFL Premiership: Buddies need help from their friends

As St Mirren prepare to host Motherwell on Saturday they need to start picking up points and hoping results elsewhere go their way.

With only Hearts, still stubbornly refusing to be officially relegated, below them in the league St Mirren's 28 points leave them two points adrift in the play-off game. They remain favourites with Betfair to be in the play-off match against the second placed side from the Scottish Championship.

With the Premiership's annual split about to kick in, a win against Motherwell might give them a bit of momentum going into the final five games. That won't be easy with Motherwell tied with Aberdeen on 60 points in second place. The Steelmen will start the game as heavy favourites with Betfair.

Partick Thistle hover two points above St Mirren after taking a point on the road against St Johnstone. On Saturday they become the latest side to try and relegate Hearts as the Edinburgh side travel to Firhill with four points from their last two games.

Ross County will look to take inspiration from their 1-1 draw at Celtic Park, a point against the champions of the division which proved to be a big upset among Betfair punters. They'll be looking for a similar result in tonight's derby with a stuttering Inverness to keep the pressure on Kilmarnock and a badly out of sorts Hibs above them.

St Mirren manager Danny Lennon will be hoping his side’s home advantage this weekend will help his team gain maximum points and ensure they are in as strong a position as possible to face the crucial final five games of the season. They will be second favourites to get the better of Motherwell and need other results to be favourable to move off ninth place.

Reconstruction: Yes? No? Who cares?

Another week closer to the reconstruction that will save Scottish football.

Or another week further away from the reconstruction that will save Scottish football.

On Monday St Mirren poked their head out from under Neil Doncaster's blanket of SPL unanimity to confirm that actually they wouldn't be voting "yes" to the 12+12+18 structure after all:

"The concept of playing 22 games prior to breaking into three leagues of eight, including the middle eight losing their points gained in the first series of games, is not a system we see as taking the game forward in the long term. You will be aware that other countries have tried this system and have since rejected such a set up.

"We also feel that this system is not fair to fans who buy into their club by way of a season ticket, who are then unsure of what they are purchasing. It is also against the basic wishes of the fans for larger leagues as highlighted in all recent fan surveys."

Ross County are rumoured to be planning to join St Mirren on the naughty step, which led East Fife chairman, Sid Collumbine, to warn County's Roy MacGregor about the pressure he'll face:

"It is bullying, there is no question about that."

The "aye" camp roared to the defence of the proposals.

Stewart Milne called them "absolutely vital" for Scottish football:

"We believe it’s the right thing for Scottish football. We’ve been working on this for nearly three years now.

"We worked on the initial option of a 10-12 [structure] which we believed delivered all the things that would help Scottish football move forward.

"Unfortunately we couldn’t get enough support for that. We worked on this revised proposal over the last eight month along with reviewing all the other options."

Neil Doncaster, fresh from making a hash of releasing the SPL's post-split fixtures, wasn't for mincing his words:

"It’s really important that 
we don’t decide against all the benefits that can be delivered with a positive vote. At the moment, we have a scenario where, every season, any number of teams are playing Russian roulette because we have one team relegated from 12 into the financial abyss. I do not see that is in the best interests of the game.

"The money that is distributed to clubs in the Premier League, you get a tiny fraction of that within the SFL First Division. We need to solve that."

Armageddon in an abyss?

Kenny Cameron spoke with forked tongue in Inverness:

"The numbers just don't add up, so a vote against 12-12-18 this time round would be a vote for the same again. That's also true as far as SFL clubs are concerned. This is not a 'pick and mix' offer that is on the table but one requiring a straight yes or no.”

"The majority of these requests are delivered by the new proposals, a larger top league being the only omission, he said

"Some 85 percent of what fans asked for is being offered. But defeat for the new proposals could mean defeat for all the elements of change, which is surely a step backwards.

"If the SPL gets its fingers burned this time, having come such a long way, then my fear is that it may be years before we come so close again."

Threats, half truths, a certain willingess to play fast and loose with what the fans think.

A new dawn indeed.

"85 percent of what fans asked for." Really?

Watching your team in a league structure that you want, a league structure that you actually understand, only accounts for 15 percent of what you want when you buy a ticket?

I must be doing it wrong.

We're five games from the end of the season. Can nobody find the handbrake and just ca' canny?

Why are the proposals not "pick and mix?"

Why not push ahead where there is consensus and take time to reflect on the one issue that is really not convincing the paying public?

Why can't we disband the SPL and the SFL, create a new organisation and agree on a model for redistribution within the current set up for just one more season?

Why can't we let that new organisation decide on the new structure, rather than lumbering it with a both a fix and a muddle bequeathed by the dying SPL?

This is Scotland, current world champions of the 'interminably long navel gazing over a simple yes/no question' division.

What's the rush?

"We’ve been working on this for nearly three years now," says Stewart Milne.

They've been talking about it, stalling and enraging fans for far longer.

It's never been suggested before that a "yes" vote is required weeks before the end of a season.

Is 12+12+18 going to persuade sponsors to fling money at the game, the irresistible lure of a failed Swiss model run by an organisation that doesn't yet exist?

Kenny Cameron indicates that if we don't do what the SPL wants right here, right now they're going to pick up their ball and go home.

Maybe that passes for constructive debate in the SPL, an organisation so addled it can still use Neil Doncaster as its spokesperson.

It's not healthy that St Mirren and Ross County can dictate the future to every Scottish club. It's not healthy for any two clubs to be able to do that.

St Mirren and Ross County didn't create that system.

It's a difficult decision though: stop 12+12+18 and everything is off the table and the SPL, perhaps after ushering in hand selected teams for SPL2, will raise the drawbridge.

A new start in a house divided by SPL's intransigence? Or the SPL going it alone and let them eat cake?

Bullying? It looks like it. Bullied by the SPL, the failed experiment that was going to "save" Scottish football in 1998.

What will happen on Monday?

I don't know. But whatever way the vote goes don't hold your breath for a brave new world.

SPL: Stuttering Hibs

Fifth in the league, a point better off after 26 games of this season than they were after the SPL had run it's course last season.

Hibs fans, punch drunk from their annus horribilis, heard promises in the summer of a rebuilt side capable of making progress.

A top six berth after two-thirds of the season does indeed point to progress. But statistics, as students of the number crunching Craig Brown know only too well, can hide a multitude of sins.

Hibs have clung grimly to their league position despite a run of just seven points in ten games.

They slipped from fourth following Monday's meek capitulation to St Johnstone at Easter Road. It's not impossible that the SPL's unpredictable middle ten could throw up a combination of results that condemn them to ninth place by the middle of next week.

Fans could be forgiven for not travelling to tomorrow's match with St Mirren - whose last seven points have been garnered from just three games - with songs of joy in their hearts.

Hibs (2.8 at https://sports.bwin.com/en/sports/4/betting/football) remain five points ahead of their opponents - in the SPL's flabby midrift they are separated by five teams - but St Mirren (2.3) just edge ahead as favourites.

Home advantage counts. But so to must the laboured way Hibs have gone about their business of late.

After shipping three goals in successive games against Inverness and Motherwell in December, Pat Fenlon did successfully stop the flow of goals.

Just four were conceded in the next eight games. Unfortunately only four were scored.

The impression was of a team that couldn't confidently attack if they were to remain competent in defence. On Monday they could do neither and St Johnstone filled their boots.

Leigh Griffiths has too often been isolated up front, sometimes alone and sometimes partnered with the willing but profligate Eoin Doyle.

The younger alternatives in attack seem to have been deemed too raw to start. The moribund Shefki Kuqi's experience is rendered impotent by immobility.

The midfield often looks too flat footed to help out, David Wotherspoon's early season rejuvenation replaced by a hesitant anonymity while others are happy to graft but unwilling, unable or simply not encouraged to play a meaningful offensive role.

Where Paul Cairney offered sparks of creativity into the autumn, he's now slipping to the periphery, a tendency to embonpoint looking more like a problematic heavy arsedness on deteriorating pitches.

Ben Williams impresses in goal behind a defence that often sits too deep, especially on those occasions - and there have been a few of late - when James McPake is preoccupied by finding his own form. Tim Clancy's ongoing injury problems necessitate a starting back four that is susceptible to individual errors.

Yet Fenlon can rightly point to progress at the back. 34 goals conceded in 26 games compares favourably with the 50 conceded at the same stage last year. A goal difference of -1 is nothing to write home about but it knocks last season's -26 into a cocked hat.

So is this wintry malaise a blip and nothing more?

This supporter hopes so.

Scott Robertson and Matt Done arrived in January to provide more incisive options in midfield. Both started on Monday. Both will hope to quickly make amends.

The feeling persists, however, that the transfer window was not used to address gaps in the squad. Too often of late Fenlon's changes look like so much fiddling while Easter Road gurns.

Let us be sanguine and say that in the travails of recent years enduring a mid season blip while remaining in the top half of the table with a Scottish Cup quarter final to come would have been considered a position of some luxury.

But my reading of the mood suggests patience is becoming frayed.

Taking the same number of points in two games against Celtic as they have from three against an adrift Dundee suggests Fenlon hasn't cracked what we might romantically call the Hibs enigma or more prosaically label the destructive inconsistency of the club.

To hear a manager say he's "embarrassed" by a performance 26 games into a season, a performance indicative of "the last few weeks [when] we haven't shown the desire to win football matches" is about as depressing as spending Valentine's Day writing about the travails of your team.

The potential remains for this season to be one of positive progress.

But Fenlon needs to find a higher gear soon to avoid yet another year of broken promises. He could do worse than start in Paisley this weekend.

St Mirren v Hibs prediction: If I must, based on the perhaps forlorn hope that a reaction to Monday night should be inevitable, Hibs to win 2-1 (10.5.)

SPL: The Joy of Six

A Saturday Superstore tomorrow. With Neil Doncaster as Mike Read and a half time interview with Craig Brown filling in for a wacky live link with Cheggers.

A splendid SPL smorgasbord seeing out September. Alarming alliteration aside, we can sit back and enjoy six games in the top flight.

Aberdeen v Hibs

The good lord of scheduling giveth and he taketh away. Thus the joy of a Saturday game is diminished by a noon kick off.

Hibs are looking to make it seven games undefeated in the SPL, Aberdeen are looking to make it nine undefeated in all competitions.

Last week Hibs threw away a two goal lead, Aberdeen salvaged a point after being two goals behind.

They served up some fetid feasts of boredom last season but current form suggests this might be a darn good match up.

When they weren't being hauled back last week Hibs looked confident, aggressive, capable of playing a bit of football.

Far from the finished article and still lacking any real depth to the squad. But Pat Fenlon deserves praise for how his work in progress is, eh, progressing.

Fools and bairns shouldn't see unfinished jobs? A football manager doesn't have that luxury. Fenlon must work under the glare of a support still haunted by recent experiences.

He's making a decent fist of it. And that's more than his predecessor managed.

Aberdeen's start to the season - efficiently low key but lacking goals - was vintage Craig Brown but belied a summer spent assembling what looks to be a half decent squad.

A point salvaged last week and a late win against Dunfermline on Wednesday might just give them the burst of urgency they need.

This could be tight. Certainly a Hibs win at 23/10 or the draw at the same odds look better prices than an Aberdeen win at 6/5.

Regular readers will know I don't like publicly declaring Hibs predictions on the blog.

But at more than 2/1 I will be backing them.

Dundee v St Johnstone

All that time without a win, a bit of a Moaning Minnie harrumph when they lost to Hibs at Easter Road.

What a difference a month makes.

September has delivered seven SPL points from nine and a league cup win for St Johnstone.

It started equally well for Dundee but a win at Tynecastle has been followed by two defeats. Bottom of the league, four points from seven games.

Still early but it's form that makes you think of a long struggle ahead.

If they want to haul themselves out of their current fug then winning home games against St Johnstone would be the sensible way to start.

The home win is out at 23/10 though. So is the draw. St Johnstone are 6/5 to make it ten points out of 12. I suspect they'll do just that.

Hearts v Kilmarnock

Up and doon.

That's pretty much the season so far for both Hearts and Kilmarnock.

For a number of clubs actually. This could be an excitingly unpredictable season. It could also be a turgid affair with eight or nine clubs trapped together in a tedious waltz of shared mediocrity.

Depending on how full or empty your glass is.

Hearts vaulted past Dundee United last week to record their first SPL win since the opening day.

Kilmarnock eased past St Mirren to record their second SPL win of the season.

Going into this game both have played seven, won two and amassed nine points with a goal difference of plus two.

Anything John McGlynn can do, Kenny Shiels can do pretty much the same.

Which will make this a tight one today?

Hearts don't look to offer much value at 10/11, Kilmarnock might be a tad generous at 3/1.

A draw for me though. 12/5.

Inverness v Dundee United

Inverness looked in danger of being overrun as Hibs went two ahead last Saturday.

There, laid bare, were their limitations.

From adversity, strength. With Richie Foran leading the line they hauled themselves back into it with a determination and resilience which makes you think they can again be more than the sum of their parts.

If anyone stumbles across the Dundee United side that were apparently best placed to challenge for the title could they please post it back to a Mr P Houston at Tannadice.

After winning their first two game 3-0, United are now four without a win and suffered a 3-0 defeat of their own at home to Hearts last week.

Injuries haven't helped of course. But there seems to be nobody ready to take responsibility when key players are missing.

It will be a worry for Peter Houston that they've also shipped three goals in losing to Kilmarnock and Hearts.

Not scoring and not always defending very well. 'Tis a bad combination.

I'm not sure if Inverness, still without a league win, will be able to capitalise though. They're certainly thrawn but I'm unconvinced by their ability to take the initiative.

So Inverness at 2/1? Don't fancy it. Dundee United at 13/10? Not sure.

The draw at 9/4. Go on then.

Motherwell v Celtic

In the last week Motherwell have lost a two goal lead against an Aberdeen side that couldn't score and been dispatched from the league cup by a Third Division side.

That's pish, frankly.

The manner of their defeat to Rangers - not just the lack of marking at the goals, but the stumbling, pedestrian ineptitude of much of their play - should be a cause for concern.

But they're top of the league so everything is rosy? Hmmm. They are both bad results.

I'd be astonished if Celtic don't win this game.

The most interesting thing about it is the kick off time: The first Saturday 3pm kick off for a Celtic away game in the SPL since October 2005 when Livingston were on the wrong end of a 5-0 drubbing.

A drubbing inspired by "youngsters Stephen McManus and Shaun Maloney."

Gary Hooper looks in the mood. The Motherwell defence looks generous. The Celtic win is likely but it's a low value 8/13.

St Mirren v Ross County

Kenny Shiels was ebullient in his praise of St Mirren last week. But his Kilmarnock side had just won the game.

Defeat too for Ross County, that lengthy unbeaten league run finally coming to an end against a rejuvenated St Johnstone.

So something for both teams to bounce back from tomorrow.

It took St Mirren until injury time to slide past Hamilton in the league cup on Tuesday.

That will please Derek Adams. County are nothing if not obstinate and he might well fancy their chances of rendering St Mirren pretty but ineffective - which is the praise Shiels faintly damned them with last week.

St Mirren go into this one as favourites at evens. The County win is 11/5.

I'd be more tempted by the draw at the same price.

Coupon crazy

OK, so where are we?

The tightness of many matches and the inconsistency of many sides is making calling SPL matches something of a challenge so far this season.

Tomorrow:

Hibs to win
St Johnstone to win
Hearts and Kilmarnock to draw
Inverness and Dundee United to draw
Celtic to win
St Mirren and Ross County to draw

An accumulator on that little lot comes in at 414.69/1. A daft bet. But this might just be a daft season.

All odds from Ladbrokes

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SPL: Finding meaning, finding belief

Quite a Sunday ahead.

Celtic hosting Rangers and Hibs continuing their long, frustrating struggle to shake off relegation rivals Dunfermline against St Mirren. Two games that might normally have the Betfair football betting experts scratching their heads.

Today's match at Celtic Park is both essentially meaningless and yet crammed full of meaning.

The league title is already Celtic's. Rangers will likely claim a second place that will be rendered redundant by their current suspension from European competition.

One of these dull, go-through-the-motions, end-of season affairs then?

Perhaps not.

Some are trying to label this a bookend game: the final act in a dramatic rivalry that began on 28 May 1888.

That's unlikely. Rangers will still be around next season although it's impossible at the moment to predict where or in what form.

Yet even if the sense of closure is somewhat false there's reason for players and fans to view this as a big game.

Celtic, revelling in the role of conquerors, have a chance to drive home the feeling of triumphalism in front of a home crowd that will, surely, be high on the madness that swirls round their oldest rivals.

But what a boost a strong showing here would be for Rangers and their supporters.

Battling on a hundred fronts, swiping like punch drunk pugilists at enemies real and imagined, moving no closer to the resolution they crave.

Duff & Phelps, Rangers' administrators, have presided over a process that has delivered only delays and conditional bids, a process that has seen them look ever more like the boys who cried wolf, rescue packages still tantalisingly out of reach.

Today's match offers a 90 minute distillation of that drama, a game without tangible rewards but packed with enough meaning to ensure fans on both sides care more than ever.

How will it pan out?

I find predicting these things increasingly unpredictable, it's a game that can inspire some and leave others looking bereft.

The bookies though, and heaven knows my expertise is limited, would seem to be offering unusual generosity in their verdict on Rangers.

The club is, unavoidably, in a crisis of gargantuan proportions but recent form has seen the players show an admirable fortitude in the face of such ructions. We need look no further than the last Old Firm game to illustrate that an unknown future hasn't fulling snuffed out the danger that lurks in this team.

Fence sitting, as ever, suggests erring on the side of a draw but I'd still be surprised if Celtic don't win this one.

This, however, has been a season of surprises.

As the dust settles on the Old Firm game our attention can turn once again to the relegation travails of Hibs and Dunfermline.

Hibs fans are doing a fair impression of Michael Corleone at the moment. Just when they think they are out of the mire, Dunfermline pull them back in.

So it proved yesterday. A 3-0 win over Aberdeen was enough to give the Fifers their first home victory of the season, cut to three points the lead Hibs enjoyed and even make something a dent in the goal difference imbalance.

If Dunfermline wanted to switch the pressure back on to their fellow strugglers then yesterday was mission accomplished.

Hibs and pressure. What does manager Pat Fenlon see when he looks around the side that he's cobbled together with less than convincing results?

A team that can turn up Paisley today and deliver the riposte needed to halt any Dunfermline revival before it has properly begun?

Or a team that, like so many before them, St Mirren will see as easy touches, a welcome home three points to inject some fun into the dying embers of the season?

Hibs fans will hope he sees some resolve, sees the realisation dawning that his team have it in their gift to save themselves.

But those fans have been looking for the right answers to those questions all season long. Too often they've been disappointed.

Hope rather than expectation has guided emotion in Leith this season.

That continues today.

Another commanding performance from James McPake in defence, some incision from Garry O'Connor and Leigh Griffiths, something more cohesive from a misfiring midfield.

Deliver that and three points can be within reach today.

Fail - and they've failed a lot this year - and St Mirren have quality enough to prolong the suffering.

The stakes are high.

Time for the Hibs players to take a gamble and believe in themselves.

Even that might not be enough.

But they have to hope that it will let them crawl over the finish line.

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Scottish Cup: Dream on

That time of year when each paper has a riff on the same theme: "Hibs fans don't need reminding that it's been 110 years since their side won the Scottish Cup."

Well, no. We don't.

Yet everybody does remind us. Constantly.

The scraggy punchline of a 110 year joke. Mostly a joke that bludgeons you about the head with no attempt at subtlety. Or, largely, any attempt at humour.

But you can't point that out. Because it's been 110 years. And that, even in the hands of a bar room bore or a five year old in the playground, is indeed a joke.

1902 and all that. The journey continues.

2012 and all that. A season's journey of some discomfort. Tomorrow Ayr United and a shot at redemption in a tournament that so rarely offers Hibs any succour.

Ayr dumped Colin Calderwood's Hibs out of the cup last season. It's not that many years, but many a manager, since they dumped Franck Sauzee's sorry soldiers out of the league cup at Hampden.

Pat Fenlon will know that you don't need to beat Ayr to enjoy a fruitful reign at Easter Road. But it helps.

It won't be easy. An away tie against a lower division team that have already conquered Inverness, Hearts and St Mirren this season.

Cup assassins, stalking the Brylcreem boys of the SPL.

That's the chosen narrative.

Mind you, Ayr have only won four league games at home this season and lost to Annan Athletic, two divisions below them, at home in the Challenge Cup.

Lies, damned lies and peculiarly ambivalent statistics.

It won't be easy for Hibs. Partly because it's rarely ever easy for Hibs.

And partly because Ayr are a sound team who have been here before. They'll be lying in wait, ready to offer the hand of friendship with a traditional Somerset Park welcome.

Prediction?

Not on your nelly. I wouldn't want to jinx it.

Jinxing things is something I often do.

Last week I wrote a hagiographic appraisal of Celtic's season so far. The very next day they only managed a draw at Aberdeen.

That's the thing about football.

You build up your aura of invincibility, you look like you might finish the season undefeated. But there's always something lurking round the corner ready to bite you on the bum.

Often that something is shaped like a dogged Aberdeen, drilled to within an inch of their lives by a pair of unimpressed curmudgeons like Craig Brown and Archie Knox.

That's the way soccer's cookie crumbles.

But the treble chase is still on, a tricky quarter final trip to Tannadice notwithstanding.

Tricky? United are bubbling along quite the thing, Houdini Houston is fair putting the season's earlier struggles behind him. United are reaching for the European stars.

Unfortunately for United it's Celtic who have the better of these Tannadice tear-ups. And the last time somebody knocked both Rangers and Celtic out of the Scottish Cup Alex Ferguson was using Doug Rougvie as a human gargoyle.

Celtic's dominance at Tannadice has lasted slightly longer than Motherwell's over Aberdeen. It won't feel like that for Craig Brown and Archie Knox.

Since they hot-footed it to the greener pastures of Pittodrie our dynamic duo have seen their current side huff and puff against their former charges with little success.

On one occasion Brown even found time to have actual physical fisticuffs with John Boyle. Really.

Aberdeen look a different proposition now. It's taken longer than he'd have hoped but Brown has located a backbone in his team. They're much harder to beat, if still not exactly licensed purveyors of the beautiful game.

So a better Aberdeen. But Motherwell are better still.

A strange one this for Motherwell. They're now just a few games here and there away from consecutive Scottish Cup finals. And a Champion's League qualifier.

I'm sure Stuart McCall has every confidence in his own ability as a manager but I suspect even he wouldn't have thought this season had the potential to turn out quite as well as it might.

The man with the ginger mane has become the man with the golden touch.

Which just about seamlessly segues to Hearts whose ginger touch in front of goal has hamstrung them in recent weeks.

A five game run that was unrivalled in the league for the paucity of points gathered was finally halted with victory at Ibrox last week.

Whatever the circumstances, victory in Govan should replenish and revitalise like a weekend spa. Hearts need to build on it.

Wins have proved even more elusive for St Mirren. Danny Lennon has built a side that concedes very little and scores not a lot.

The result is the current sequence of low scoring draws. Those of us of a certain age will recall that Lennon's first tentative footballing steps were taken at Easter Road under the dourly defensive tutelage of Alex Miller.

Nobody's ever rocked a sequence of dull draws like mid to late eighties vintage Lexo Miller. The apprentice is paying homage to the master.

St Mirren's last visit to Tynecastle was in January. They conceded in the first minute, were 2-1 up inside 20 and eventually lost 5-2.

The current run is perhaps an antidote - maybe not the most inspiring one - to that sort of result.

Will they be doughty but blunt again tomorrow? Will Hearts be enterprisingly comfortable but toothless?

Eight teams. 90 minutes (or 180 or 200 or 200 plus penalties) away from a Hampden semi-final.

Dreams used to be made of this. It would be nice if this weekend could go some way to proving that they still are.

Heart v St Mirren: Draw
Ayr United v Hibs: No comment
Dundee United v Celtic: Away win
Motherwell v Aberdeen: Home win

Frugality, Whyte knights and January gambles

A week away from the blog.

I'd like to explain my absence with exciting tales of derring do. But I can't. The most excitement I got was watching Hibs beat Kilmarnock in the Scottish Cup, nailbiting to the end.

No, I've been away largely because I couldn't be arsed for the last week. One of the many dividing lines between the humdrum blogger and the paid chronicler of our beautiful game is that my can't-be-arsedness means very little to anyone, can't-be-arsedness on their part means children go unfed.

What great events did I miss?

Well, speaking of paid chroniclers, last week was the week that the Daily Record - oft referred to as the Daily Ranger in the more unforgiving corners of our footballing society, a newspaper once literally printed on blue paper - suggested that, whatever else he may be, Rangers owner Craig Whyte is not, after all, a white knight.

Rangers, said the Record, are screwed. One way or t'other, to differing degrees dependent on a variable here or there, but screwed nonetheless.

"Not so," responded Craig Whyte.

This, largely, is all Craig Whyte does. Deny things. Sometimes he also issues legal threats. But largely he denies and denies and denies. He's either incredibly wronged or he's the boy who cried wolf until he was hoarse.

One thing he's not, right now, is the owner of a football club with any momentum. Behind in the league, out of the cup - all the cups - and shorn of their star striker.

Rangers lost the the transfer window just as surely as they lost to Dundee United in that meek Scottish Cup capitulation on Sunday.

Gone is Nikica Jelavić, in is the initially phonetically amusing and initially underwhelming Mervan Celik.

A January devoted to frugality? Perhaps. But it's hard to see how this window's business has done anything but further deflate the Ibrox championship challenge.

And still, perhaps, even bigger battles lie ahead.

Rangers January's travails allowed Celtic to complete a quiet month looking like the biggest winners. Ahead in the SPL and getting past opponents of all shapes and sizes in the three domestic competitions, Celtic brought in Pawel Brozek, Rabiu Ibrahim and Michael Lustig.

What impact the three recruits will have remains to be seen. In a strange January, however, Celtic kept hold of their best players. That may well be enough in what has become a treble chasing season.

Holding on to your best players; Hearts managed that as well, despite talk of a financially motivated fire sale.

That looked to have set them up for a real tilt at third place. Best-of-the-rest might still be a realistic possibility but less than a week into February and Hearts have apparently all but dispensed with the services of 'keeper Marián Kello after a move to Austria Wien fell through.

And then the taxman - who has become as ubiquitous as the SFA compliance officer this SPL season - came calling once again with a bill to be settled and a court date to hammer home the point.

It looks like whatever Hearts achieve this season - and they could still achieve a lot - it will be done against an economically unsettled backdrop. Paulo Sergio must surely be getting used to having to do things the hard way.

Doing things the hard way seems to be a capital trend right now. A beleaguered Hibs team has once again been subjected to a January revolution.

Colin Calderwood's miracle cure lasted for about six games last season. That was enough to win him a manager of the month award and save Easter Road from hosting First Division football.

Then things settled down and the incredulous faithful realised that Calderwood had built something even worse than what had gone before.

The hope is that Pat Fenlon's reshaping will have more sticking power, although the short term goal remains the same - to finish the season in 11th place or better.

There was relief but also a certain belief as Hibs got past Kilmarnock on Saturday. But they face Aberdeen next weekend joint bottom of the table. The proof of whether Hibs have gathered another bunch of puddings lies in the weeks and games ahead.

Elsewhere prudence prevailed. Aberdeen brought in five players with Russell Anderson, Stephen Hughes and Gavin Rae addressing any problems Craig Brown felt he had with experience in the squad. And I'm intrigued to see how Danny Uchechi - a 22 year who stupendously reverses any Pittodrie strategy of making signings with senior experience in mind - fares. Scouting reports from elsewhere suggest his pedigree falls somewhere below middling.

St Mirren bought - the very act of "buying" seems something of a throwback these days, especially when the fee is £35,000 - Dougie Imrie and were boosted by Jim Goodwin deciding to stay put, a decision which would suggest that belief remains in the Danny Lennon Project.

The benefit of holding on should also be felt at St Johnstone where Francisco Sandaza remains until the end of the season, a rumoured victim of the general cack-handedness of Rangers' current recruitment policy.

Early reports suggest Motherwell have unearthed something a wee bit special in Henrik Ojamaa and Dean Shiels has made a video montage with a Cat Stevens soundtrack pretty much compulsory in the build up to the league cup final by staying on at Kilmarnock.

Dundee United brought in only Richie Ryan and Miloš Lačný but the crucial business at Tannadice was keeping a tight rein on Johnny Russell as vultures swooped.

Inverness were restricted to a couple of loan deals and the free transfer of Claude Gnakpa - an "exciting asset" according to Terry Butcher, whose word I'll need to trust for now.

Dunfermline, the church mice of the SPL whose fiscal travails would have inspired Charles Dickens, brought in Kyle Hutton on loan from Rangers and raided the same discount store to get Jordan McMillan on a free.

A 1-1 draw with Kilmarnock last night - their first home point since November - brought Dunfermline level with Hibs having played a game more.

Where Pat Fenlon has chosen scalpel wielding and reconstructive surgery, Jim McIntyre has been left to largely make do and mend.

If off-field events could still impact on the top of the league, at the bottom it looks like being a battle of wits between those two managers.

One was given resource enough to take a January gamble. How that works out will decide this relegation battle.

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SPL Advent: St Mirren

We're so close now you can almost smell the reindeer dung. We reach the final window in the SPL Advent calendar. Fling open the curtains and have a nosy at St Mirren.

One thing you can say about St Mirren is that Danny Lennon will do what's best for St Mirren Football Club and what's best for Danny Lennon. Because what's best for Danny Lennon is also what's best for St Mirren Football Club. That's how Danny Lennon operates.

Ah, Danny. I'm happy to adopt a Bruce Forsyth style theatrically conspiring whisper and admit: "Danny, you are my favourite."

The severe sincerity of his post-match utterances amuse me. But I also admire the way he got on with the job when many felt St Mirren had erred with his appointment.

And I want him to thrive because the idea of managers and players making a progression through the leagues is one that would seem essential to the game's survival in Scotland.

So good on you Danny.

This season he's added experience in the dugout with the arrival of the much travelled Tommy Craig. And he worked to reshape the squad in the summer.

Last year Lennon did what was required, performed the basic function of his job, by keeping St Mirren up.

But his approach in the summer seemed an acknowledgement that not everything he tried, not everything he transferred from Cowdenbeath, had worked.

One does wonder if that idea of a manager being given time to make the odd mistake and the opportunity to put it right will ever catch on.

Has it worked?

19 games in, half the season gone, and 22 points won. Five victories, seven draws and seven defeats.

That's already two thirds of the way to last season's points total but it'a another warm welcome to inconsistency, the theme that's run through this SPL Advent like cloves through mulled wine.

Draw at Ibrox one week, lose to Hibs in Paisley the next. Beat Kilmarnock at home one week, lose in Inverness the next. Hard to build a head of steam with those kinds of results.

Taking only eleven points from 24 against teams below them in the league points both to the tightness of the league and the struggle St Mirren face to establish themselves in the top six this season.

26 goals conceded is a fair SPL record but only nine goals scored at home and nine on the road are not enough. Nobody above St Mirren in the league has scored less.

That helps explain why they find themselves in the bottom half of the table and why Lennon will scour the January sales in search of a striker.

The team looks more experienced than last year with more solidity and a greater ability to win games.

That should be enough for safety. Danny Lennon's hope will be that it's enough for slightly more than that.

King forever, ceasing never. Over us all to reign

Danny Lennon wants everyone, players and Danny Lennon himself, to keep learning.

He probably also wants Santa to bring him a goalscorer and more points from "winnable" games.

If he gets that St Mirren could still be bothering the top six come the SPL split.

The Scottish Football Blog blogathon took place in November in aid of Alzheimer Scotland and the Homeless World Cup. You can still donate to help two great causes.

SPL: Since Alex Ferguson Said Goodbye

Four games in the SPL today.

But I'm distracted by Sir Alex Ferguson's upcoming 25th anniversary as manager of Manchester United. A phenomena. From Govan.

The SPL didn't even exist 25 years ago. We must have had football though, whatever they try and tell us.

Must have had it because I'm sure Alex Ferguson left a top flight Scottish club to take over a top flight English club 25 years ago.

But how could he have? Because football didn't exist in England 25 years ago either.

It's all very confusing.

Anyway, to celebrate here's today's match previews abbreviated to a Fergie-friendly 25 words.

Hibs v Dunfermline

Puzzlingly enigmatic riddlers clash with the plummeting new kids on the block. Hibs look to turn a corner, Dunfermline to find a parachute. Home win.

Kilmarnock v Inverness

Bruised but victorious at Tynecastle, Kilmarnock host table propping Highlanders. Can they pass Butcher’s boys to destruction? Intense Shiels stares down angry Terry. Home win.

Rangers v Dundee United

Table topping despite titillating with slow moving financial tease, Rangers try denying Celtic the oxygen of hope. Can redeemed Houston inspire tangerine heroics? Home win.

St Mirren v Hearts

Unpaid, overpaid, out of here? Visitors seek Paisley sanctuary as hosts hold tight to Lennon’s football karma. Goal gluttony afficianados should gawp elsewhere. (Tight) Draw.

How much is one Sir Alex Ferguson worth? Part One

Stability, wisdom has it, is the key to football success. Exhibit A is Sir Alex Ferguson himself.

Armed only with a bargain from Leeds and an Australian media tycoon with deep pockets he invented soccer as we know it. Or something.

Not every club is so lucky.

Here's a look at a quarter of a century on the merry managerial carousel endured by the eight clubs involved in SPL action today.

Hibs

Then: John Blackley
Now: Colin Calderwood

In between: Alex Miller, Jocky Scott (sustained run as caretaker), Jim Duffy, Alex McLeish, Franck Sauzee, Bobby Williamson, Tony Mowbray, John Collins, Mixu Patalainen, John Hughes

Total: 12

Dunfermline

Then: Jim Leishman
Now: Kenny McIntyre

In between: Iain Munro, Jocky Scott, Bert Paton, Dick Campbell, Jimmy Calderwood, David Hay, Jim Leishman, Stephen Kenny

Total: 9

Kilmarnock

Then: Eddie Morrison
Now: Kenny Shiels

In between: Jim Fleeting, Tommy Burns, Alex Totten, Bobby Williamson, Jim Jefferies, Jimmy Calderwood, Mixu Paatelainen

Total: 9

Inverness

Then: not a Scottish League side
Now: Terry Butcher

In between (since joining SFL in 1994): Sergei Baltacha, Steve Paterson, John Robertson, Craig Brewster, Charlie Christie, Craig Brewster

Total: 7

Rangers

Then: Graeme Souness
Now: Ally McCoist

In between: Walter Smith, Dick Advocaat, Alex McLeish, Paul Le Guen, Walter Smith

Total: 7

Dundee United

Then: Jim McLean
Now: Peter Houston

In between: Ivan Golac, Billy Kirkwood, Tommy McLean, Paul Sturrock, Alex Smith, Paul Hegarty, Ian McCall, Gordon Chisholm, Craig Levein

Total: 11

St Mirren

Then: Alex Miller
Now: Danny Lennon

In between: Alex Smith, Tony Fitzpatrick, David Hay, Jimmy Bone, Tony Fitzpatrick, Tom Hendrie, John Coughlin, Gus MacPherson

Total: 10

Hearts

Then: Alex Macdonald
Now: Paulo Sergio

In between: Sandy Jardine (co-manager), Joe Jordan, Sandy Clark, Tommy McLean, Jim Jefferies, Craig Levein, John Robertson, George Burley, Graham Rix, Valdas Ivanauskas, Anatoly Korobocha, Stephen Frail, Csaba Lazlo, Jim Jefferies (includes caretakers who were in charge for a month or more)

Total: 16

Conclusion based on the eight SPL games being played today:

One Sir Alex Ferguson equals 81 Scottish club managers.

Science says so.

Donate to the Scottish Football Blog Blogathon, 19 November 2011

SPL: 2011/12 Predictions

We're now tantalisingly close to the SPL's opening weekend. July isn't yet out but already the sense of anticipation is growing.

The churlish prediction for the season ahead would be that "it can't be as bad as last time." But this being Scottish football we know that's not true. It can be every bit as bad. It could even be worse.

But let us hope not.

Last week I was asked to contribute a brief "state of Scottish football" article for a Polish fanzine as part of their build-up before Dundee United's Europa League qualifiers.

Turning to Twitter I asked for one word summaries of what's wrong with the Scottish game:

I could probably have predicted most of the answers: pricing, lacklustre, repetitive, dominance [by the Old Firm], infrastructure, pitches, bigotry, greed, bankrupt, ethos, Glasgow [the Old Firm again], mentality, money, ignorance, technique, corruption [I'll insert my own "alleged" here], self-interest, bloggers, standards, governance and - most simply - everything.

It's a long list. Another correspondent chose "self-deprecating" and perhaps we dwell too
much on the negatives.

Not the responses of satisfied consumers.

But absence makes the heart grow fonder and now the opening matches stretch ahead over three glorious July days, Rangers flag unfurling festivities on Saturday lunchtime getting things underway before Dunfermline and St Mirren round things off in the highly coveted Monday night graveyard slot.

An odd summer. I've been only lightly blogging and bored rigid with the Colin Calderwood "will he, won't he, should he, would he" saga. The Rangers takeover drama was dragged to a conclusion, Hearts wrapped themselves up in all sorts of public relations confusion over the Craig Thompson case, the SPL's Scottish football "revolution" appears no closer to becoming reality and our modestly talented referees have won a modest pay rise.

On the footballing side we've not yet seen any clubs really capturing the imagination with their transfer dealings.

Rangers are having as much difficulty closing out deals as Rupert Murdoch has answering questions about the dealings of his newspapers.

Hearts fired out of the blocks when the transfer window opened but seem to have put a halt on incoming players for the time being. Hibs imagination stretched all the way back to the past glories of Ivan Sproule and Garry O'Connor.

Dundee United lost Craig Conway and question marks remain over David Goodwillie. But they signed John Rankin. Honest, hard working and full of endeavour, perhaps Rankin will be a hit. But it's a signing that seems to sum up where Scottish football is now operating.

Financial survival means saying goodbye to youngsters and their abundant talent. Thus the search for a brave new world is compromised by a reliance on players like Rankin, players who perhaps best summed up by an old David Cameron line, one that may yet come back to haunt him: "You were the future once."

I'll take a closer look at each team as kick off approaches. For now though, as is the wont of bloggers the world over, I suppose some SPL predicitions are in order.

As ever the title race will become a bunfight between Glasgow's star-crossed rivals. But who will triumph?

The consensus across the land seems to be that Neil Lennon's Celtic will edge out Ally McCoist's Rangers.

It's hard to disagree.

Celtic came close last season, their squad has survived largely intact, battle scarred but more experienced.

Rangers remain something of a work in progress, McCoist enduring both a bad (if essentially meaningless) run of results and frustration in the transfer market. Right now I would say four in a row looks a long, long way off. It's a tricky task for a managerial novice. As another Prime Minister once said: "this is no time for an apprentice."

So Celtic as champions and Rangers as runners-up. Which, and a word of warning here, is pretty much how I've predicted it going for the last two or three seasons.

I'm backing Hearts to finish third again. Will they mount a challenge to the top two? I think Jim Jefferies has been shrewd in the transfer market but it seems to me that he's entrenched their position as best of the rest rather than pushing them closer to the summit.

So a Hearts challenge, a slice of Gorgie meat popping up in an Old Firm sandwich, is likely to depend as much on a lack of form elsewhere than on their own form.

At the other end I expect Dunfermline to struggle on their return to the SPL. Any number of clubs could join them.

Will St Mirren have improved sufficiently from last season to enjoy some comfort away from the relegation zone this season? Has Kenny Shiels managed to lift Kilmarnock from the trough of despair they entered when Mixu left last season? Will Hibs be able to start strongly enough to combat the apathy in Leith? Has Craig Brown finally turned around the fortunes of Aberdeen? Will St Johnstone score any goals?

A failure to answer those questions will cause those teams problems. But, find a solution, and they could see themselves at the right end of the top six.

Right now I'd say Dunfermline to go down but only after a scrap with St Mirren. Dundee United to join Hearts in the top six, and the remaining six places very much up for grabs between some very evenly matched teams.

Oddly, and I might be wildly off the mark here, I get the impression that the early start to the season that was supposed to help our clubs has actually caught them on the hop.

Nobody quite seems ready to get going. That might be a big advantage to any club that manages to hit the ground running. It also makes predictions about the outcome of the season somewhat hit or miss.

But, for now, I'll stick with Celtic for the top and Dunfermline for the chop.

As ever with Scottish football it's how we travel from here to the end of the season that is likely to provide more intrigue, drama, lunacy, excitment and general daftness than the final outcome. I only hope the whole thing is carried with off less arsey-ness and far less criminal idiocy than we saw last season.

SPL Clubs Play Fitball

In the not too dim and distant past I used to work for a health charity in Midlothian.

I'll admit I wasn't straight from central casting. The only way I become a poster boy for health and fitness is if you need someone to pose for the "before" section of your "before and after" pictures.

I'm not one of life's joggers, teetotallers or carrot chompers. I do actually walk for about an hour and 40 minutes three or four days a week at the moment and with a cringe I remember a particularly wooden Gavin Hastings telling me that would do some good in an old 'get fat Scots healthy' advert.

Sorry, Gav, but the only discernible impact is to make me moan about having to walk for an hour and 40 minutes three or four days a week.

Anyway although locked in a cupboard to hide me from public view for most of my time at this health charity, I was released long enough to do some publicity for a men's health programme we were running.

And it was a hard slog. Scottish men aren't naturally given to such group activities. Too reserved, stubborn, proud, embarrassed, fearful of the unknown. Like drawing teeth.

Solving the nation's issues with diet and exercise was always going to be harder than just lumbering the Scottish Cup with that awful Active Nation sobriquet.

Kudos then to the SPL clubs for backing the Football Fans in Training scheme. Such programmes rely on tangible results for their survival and last year this one certainly seemed to achieve something quite impressive.

Perhaps it's because it provides an environment that is familiar and comfortable or that you're with folk with at least a football club in common.

Whatever the reason, it works. Weight is lost, unhealthy bodies become healthier bodies.

And that leads us to an "SPL CLUBS DOING SOMETHING GOOD FOR SOCIETY" shocker.

Most refreshing.

Full text of a press release I was sent about how to get involved below. I'd encourage anyone who thinks they - or someone they know - could benefit to at least find out more.

On this occasion doing as I say and not as I do certainly seems to be worth it.

Lose weight, get fitter and get more out of life with your local SPL club* - Football Fans in Training 2011/12

Following the very successful Football Fans in Training (FFIT) programme last season, the community coaches at your local SPL club are looking for men who feel a bit out of shape to sign up for the 3 FFIT programmes being run in 2011/12.

Men completing FFIT last year lost a total of 2.3 tonnes in weight and 24m around their bellies.

They loved the 12 week course activities like a night out with the lads without the drinks and many said they looked forward to coming every week.

You can register now for FFIT 2011/12 at your local SPL club if you are:

Male - 35-65 years - With a BMI of at least 28 kg/m2 - Or a belly of at least 40 inches/trouser waist size of at least 38 inches

Visit our website at: www.spl-ffit.co.uk

Call 0800 389 2129, Text FFIT to 88802 or email ffit@sphsu.mrc.ac.uk

*The 13 clubs offering FFIT free of charge during 2011/2012 are:

• Aberdeen
• Celtic
• Dundee United
• Dunfermline
• Hamilton Accies
• Heart of Midlothian
• Hibernian
• Inverness Caledonian Thistle
• Kilmarnock
• Motherwell
• Rangers
• St Johnstone
• St Mirren

Let's Hear It For The Fans

It may have escaped your notice but we're all suffering from election fever here in Scotland.

Actually, it might well have escaped your notice. The campaign hasn't exactly caught the public imagination yet. Strange that, given all the massive and impressive personalities involved at the hustings.

I jest.

But the fitba' has elbowed its way into proceedings thanks to a new proposal from the Scottish Greens:

"The Scottish Greens today proposed an extension of land reform and the community right to buy to cover Scotland's football clubs, so fans would have first refusal when their club comes up for sale. The Greens also identified two sources of money to back fan buy-outs: first, from the £1m last week allocated to sponsor the Scottish League Cup from the Proceeds of Crime Act, and secondly through a levy on the broadcast fees received by the Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football Association.

"The Scottish game continues to be beset by financial insecurity, uncertainty about ownership and structures. These measures are designed to start a long-term shift towards fan ownership of their clubs, work promoted across the UK by organisations like Supporters Direct. Last year saw the successful £300,000 takeover of Stirling Albion by its fans, yet other Scottish clubs - including Dundee and Motherwell - remain in financial difficulty while supporters' trusts work to take control of them."

Patrick Harvie, Co-convenor of the Scottish Greens and the party's top candidate in Glasgow, said:

"Scottish football is in a mess. We have chronic financial indiscipline in football management, and a concentration of wealth and power in the clubs at the top of the game. Fan-owned clubs, on the other hand, are a model that works well elsewhere - not just for Barcelona and Real Madrid, but also for every substantial club in both Sweden and Germany. In the long term, clubs large and small will only thrive on and off the pitch when they are rooted in their communities, and that means giving loyal supporters both the right to buy their clubs and the money to do so."

An interesting proposal. I'd guess it might not be top of the Greens' wishlist if they find themselves bargaining with a minority government. But one never knows.

Slightly put off by the comparisons with other countries. Real Madrid and Barcelona are very different beasts. And, it must be said, both have embraced some of modern football's more extravagant excesses despite, maybe because, of their structures.

Still, it's a fair enough point and I'm sure fan ownership or part ownership will provide the best answers to the problems at certain clubs.

Interestingly the Greens' policy announcement clashed with a statement from St Mirren:

"Last year the board of St Mirren Football Club appointed Richard Atkinson and Chris Stewart to the Club board. This was with the purpose of investigating the feasibility of a Community Interest Company (CIC) based purchase of the 52% of the shares of the Club that have been for sale.

"The board is pleased to report that the initial phase of this investigation has concluded positively and as a result two further individuals are to be brought on as advisors to the board. This is Scott McLennan, former Local Director for LloydsTSB and Tony Fitzpatrick, who requires no further introduction to all St Mirren fans.

"Over the next couple of weeks further details will be announced of a shareholders meeting and a number of public meetings at which all people who may be interested in what a Community Interest Company controlling ownership will mean for them, the team and the wider community."

If nothing else it seems that Scottish football, a game trapped in a perpetual hunt for solutions and answers, is about to hear a lot more about the pros, cons, if, buts and possibilities of fan ownership.

> Fair to assume that both David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt, his Culture, Media and Sports go-to-guy, have had other things on their minds since assuming office last year. But, lest we forget, the Conservative Sports Manifesto had this to say:

"We will reform the football governance arrangements so co-operative ownership models can be established by supporters, as part of a wider package of reform of football finance and governance."

That might be a more fitting legacy than the bungled 2018 World Cup bid. A select committee inquiry into football governance is ongoing and today's Guardian reports that:

"The Culture, Media and Sport select committee's investigation into football governance is set to lead to a formal club licensing system. Indeed, so advanced is the thinking of the committee that what the licensing system would contain is already taking shape.

"Insiders have told Digger that there are four main strands. The committee has been particularly alarmed by the lack of transparency surrounding Leeds United's ownership. Shaun Harvey, the Championship club's chief executive, was left to answer the committee's questions about who are the beneficial owners of the web of offshore trusts that are Leeds's parents, but he said he did not know. This starkly illustrated to the committee the ease with which impenetrable structures can be set up.

"The second licensing condition will be a strengthened fit-and-proper-persons' test. Third will be a restriction on the clubs' gearing ratios of debt to equity or assets, and fourth will be an element of supporter involvement in the decision-making structures of clubs.

"This is set to be enshrined in a Football Governance and Major Events Act, for which parliamentary time has been set aside. The licensing system would be a big incentive for reform of the normally reactionary Football Association. Once the FA became fit for regulatory purpose, oversight of the system would give it proper teeth."

Watch this space.

Hamilton: Bank On Relegation

Hamilton are relegated. Just as surely as Fred Goodwin is a banker* the Accies have reached the end of the SPL road.

Well, they haven't quite. But it seems to be getting closer and closer.

Billy Reid's side now languish at the foot of the table, seven points adrift of St Mirren who have a game in hand.

And it's St Mirren they must concentrate on catching if they are to escape their fate.

St Johnstone, Aberdeen, Hibs and one of Inverness and Motherwell are going to be too far ahead of bottom place by the time of the split to be dragged back into the mire.

Hamilton's next four games are against St Johnstone, St Mirren, Rangers and Hibs.

At least two of them would appear to be must win matches if they are to claw themselves to some kind of parity with St Mirren before the last five games of the season.

St Mirren, whose next five league games include Hearts, Aberdeen and Celtic, look to have the more difficult pre-split run in. But I would be fairly confident that Danny Lennon will just need to avoid defeat in the game against Hamilton to maintain a comfortable distance between the sides.

In recent games reporters and pundits have been falling over themselves to patronise Hamilton for their performances and insist that their "luck must change."

Which is, frankly, bollocks.

When you're the condemned team there is no guarantee that your luck must change. None at all.

When you're the condemned team being denied a possible penalty shout at 1-1 against United is what happens.

When you're the condemned team playing well against Hibs only to lose goals when you've been attacking is what happens.

It's shit. But that is the luck you get.

But it's not just bad luck that sees Hamilton where they are.

Last night in Dundee they welcomed back Alex Neil. Club captain, big presence and important part of the successful years Hamilton have had.

With the greatest of respect though, Hamilton need a lot of things right now. And, as big an influence as Alex Neil exerts, he's not going to be able to save them.

At the moment I'm reading Moneyball by Michael Lewis. And it's fascinating about the use of sabermetrics in baseball.

But Hamilton don't need Wall Street traders or Harvard economists to tell them why they're failing.

They're deep in the doodah because they don't score goals. And when they do they can't convert them into wins.

In 14 home games this season Hamilton have scored only nine goals and won no games.

In 15 away games they've managed eight goals and two wins.

That's relegation stuff.

It's true that, because proven goalscorers cost money, Hamilton are not the only SPL side to struggle.

St Johnstone have scored only 18, just one more than Hamilton, this season. But they've managed to clinch five home wins and three away wins with a goal difference of -16 compared to Hamilton's -33.

So St Johnstone with only one goal more are six wins, 17 goals and 17 points better off.

St Mirren have scored five more goals than Hamilton but won three more games and seven more points with a goal difference of -23.

With what appear to be not disimilar attacking resources, the two Saints are making more of an impact in the SPL.

In fact, throughout Scotland, only Ross County, eighth in the First Division, have scored as few goals as Hamilton this season.

If you're not going to score goals at least shut up shop at the back. But Hamilton have struggled with that as well. The Accies have shipped 50 goals this season, three more than even Aberdeen whose statistics are skewed by a 9-0 humping at Celtic.

In the Scottish leagues only Stirling Albion, bottom of the first, have a goal difference as bad.

If you can't score and you struggle to defend then suddenly a 1-0 loss or 2-1 loss becomes an OK result, an improvement. 0-0 or 1-1 becomes a stunning result. That's not enough for Hamilton right now.

So Hamilton are destined to go down because they are crap?

Possibly. But crap teams have survived before. And at one stage this season it looked like Hibs were so poor that Hamilton might have been able to watch the Leith side hurtle past them into the First Division.

There are also mitigating circumstances. Since Hamilton won promotion they've lost James McCarthy and James McCarthur to England. Neil has missed most of this season through injury.

And the money has simply not been there to provide even adequate replacements.

Nor has there been money to find a goalscorer. Mickael Antoine-Curier and Flavio Paixao lead the Hamilton scoring charts. They've got three league goals each.

A lack of goals scored and too many goals conceded are the traits of Hamilton's season.

The hard luck stories and the pundits plaudits are perhaps less a symbol of their continued fight as a confirmation of their reality.

The players are responding, are finding the spirit to battle on. And it's still not good enough.

Some fans are blaming the manager, others give him the benefit of the doubt because of what he's achieved in other seasons.

The media and pundits will probably lean towards the latter verdict because Billy Reid is a good bloke and they don't care that much about Hamilton anyway.

To constantly upset the odds on a tight budget is a hard job though. Perhaps Reid has just run out of ideas or luck. Either way the situation is now so bleak that there is little he can do except try to keep the players plugging away and hope, like the fans, that something, anything, changes.

I hate to see any team going down. Been there, done that, still feel the scars.

But someone (most seasons) has to. And this season that looks very like being Hamilton.

* Sir Fred Goodwin, the former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive, has taken out an injunction banning the media from calling him a banker, an MP has claimed. (The Mirror)

Doesn't say anything about rhyming slang though...

Have Faith In Adam

This week's Friday videos feature man of the moment Charlie Adam.

Will he go to Liverpool? Will he stay at Blackpool? Will Charlie, Rangers or Ian Holloway make more money from the deal?

First up, a young and nervous Charles scores a pre-season hat-trick:



Charlie does a "Chic Charnley" in a friendly match:



Revelling in the big match atmosphere in the play-off:



And scoring for St Mirren back in the day:



The Scottish Football Blog News Feed

SPL 2010/11: Looking Ahead

You might, were you to spend six months somewhere that Scotland’s amber nectar wasn’t readily available, find yourself craving a pint of Tennent’s Lager.

Straight to the pub on your return, down a pint. And think: “On reflection, that’s really not that great.”

We fall into the trap of missing things because we’re used to them. Like a soldier writing letters to an ugly sweetheart at home, we pine for things we can’t have because we can’t have them not because they represent a true measure of quality.

All of which runs through my mind as I sit and contemplate the return of the SPL. The Best League In Scotland. Possibly.

Had I written this preview on Tuesday I might have been a bit more eager for things too get started. But then I saw some of our “finest” players turn in very bad impersonations of top class footballers and the joy of anticipation was replaced by more familiar feelings of gnawing despair.

Am I confident of a great season in the SPL. Nah, I’m really not. Not at all.

There is an argument to be made that things might be exciting because we’re not quite sure of how Celtic and Rangers will fare. So I suppose you have to make a choice and decide if you’d rather have 12 bad teams or 10 bad teams and two not-quite-as-bad-but-still-hardly-brilliant teams.

One side of the Old Firm will win the league and one will finish second. I can’t see any other outcome.

I’m not going to predict which will take the championship though. There are still questions. Rangers, threadbare but experienced. Celtic, another new look, another new manager and an apparently still leaky defence.

Transfer dealings that have not yet been finalised will play a part for both teams. Too soon, for me, to say with any confidence who will come out on top. Tony Mowbray was the SPL’s Manager of the Month in August last year. And that hardly set the tone for the season ahead.

Third place? Dundee United will look to build on last year. That won’t be easy but nor would it be an outlandish prediction to say they’ll challenge for the “best of the rest” tag.

Jim Jefferies will ensure Hearts pose more of a threat this season. But has the squad been greatly enhanced? Will Kevin Kyle stay fit and will Hearts become over reliant on his physical presence. If they do who will feed off him? Kyle has rarely proved himself a prolific goalscorer in the past so Hearts will still need goals from somewhere.

Hibs’ pre season form and European misadventure suggests they are unlikely to get off to a flier this year. Given their normal travails after January it’s difficult to see when exactly they’ll be able to piece together a sustained challenge for anything other than a solid top six finish.

In signing Paul Hartley Aberdeen have pulled off something of a coup. His experience should help a young squad improve on last year. It couldn’t be much worse.

Motherwell look to be responding well to Craig Brown and his methodical approach to preparing his team. Can they last the pace of a full league season?

What strides have St Johnstone made in improving on their solid return to the SPL. A top six finish would represent another step in their encouraging development.

Further down I can see four teams being involved in the relegation battle. Kilmarnock’s financial struggles continue and, much as I expect them to be a stuffy and obstinate side, I fear they might leave it late to escape the financial blackhole of relegation yet again.

Inverness will look to start well, build from there and make sure they pick up points at home. They’ve stuck by Terry Butcher and he’s got them back up. If he can now keep them up then they’ll have had a decent enough season. Don’t expect fireworks though.

Hamilton again impressed last season but as players leave it becomes harder and harder to repeat that success. Could be a long old struggle.

All the clubs in the bottom half of the table might just be saved by St Mirren. I don’t want that to happen, I want to see Danny Lennon succeed. But I fear that things could go badly. Very badly.

A tentative table prediction. Tentative because I think United will finish third and I think St Mirren will probably go down. Other than that, it's anyone's game:

1 Rangers/Celtic
2 Celtic/Rangers
3 Dundee United
4 Hearts
5 Motherwell
6 Aberdeen
7 Hibs
8 St Johnstone
9 Kilmarnock
10 Hamilton
11 Inverness
12 St Mirren

Lennon signs on

Finally an SPL club get their Lennon.

My first reaction to Danny Lennon's appointment at St Mirren was positive. Obviously it's not a bank busting move but these are straitened times.

Just reward for Lennon's excellent season at Cowdenbeath and the Buddies' board to be applauded for a brave move. No doubt they looked to Craig Levein's run at Hearts after stepping up from Cowden.

Does history repeat itself? Who knows? But full marks for shunning the orthodox SPL managerial roster.

There's two side to every story though.

Here's a St Mirren fan's reaction from Twitter (@_Jock):

"It was confirmed this afternoon that Danny Lennon has been appointed as the team manager at St Mirren Football Club" Whoop de fuckin' do.

@ScotFootBlog Daft to have got rid of Gus before sale went through. New owner should pick manager. Appointment shows low ambitions.

@ScotFootBlog The redundancies make it look like a "fire sale" is on the cards. So am surprised they have taken on more staff.

@ScotFootBlog New board will have their own ambitions, just hope they're footballing ones.

Maybe my optimism is misplaced. Will Lennon have been given assurances about his position after any sale? Is that sale likely to go through in the short term?

All that remains unclear. I still think this is an admirable move by St Mirren. Unfortunately it also seems to raise some questions that nobody is providing answers to.

The not so merry-go-round

A couple of different takes on Gus MacPherson's departure from St Mirren:

Manager's have a shelf life and need to move on, or be moved on, when it becomes clear that the club is no longer moving forward.

Or:

By getting them to the SPL, keeping them there and throwing in a cup final for good measure, MacPherson had done a decent job in tricky circumstances.

I'm not sure. Sometimes maybe we're too keen to blanket management, and the exponents of the managerial art, with a theory about what makes a "good manager."

Different clubs require different things. But maybe we are too quick to chop and change.

Look at the 12 SPL clubs on the final day of last season:

Rangers: Walter Smith
Celtic: Gordon Strachan
Hearts: Csaba Lazlo
Aberdeen: Jimmy Calderwood
Dundee United: Craig Levein
Hibs: Mixu Paatalainen
Motherwell: Mark McGhee
Kilmarnock: Jim Jefferies
Hamilton: Billy Reid
Falkirk: John Hughes
St Mirren: Gus MacPherson
St Johnstone (Promoted): Derek McInnes

And the start of this season:

Rangers: Walter Smith
Celtic: Tony Mowbray
Hearts: Csaba Lazlo
Aberdeen: Mark McGhee
Dundee United: Craig Levein
Hibs: John Hughes
Motherwell: Jim Gannon
Kilmarnock: Jim Jefferies
Hamilton: Billy Reid
Falkirk: Eddie May
St Mirren: Gus MacPherson
St Johnstone: Derek McInnes

And now:

Rangers: Walter Smith
Celtic: Neil Lennon (Caretaker)
Hearts: Jim Jefferies
Aberdeen: Mark McGhee
Dundee United: Peter Houston
Hibs: John Hughes
Motherwell: Craig Brown
Kilmarnock: Jimmy Calderwood
Hamilton: Billy Reid
Falkirk: Steven Pressley
St Mirren: Vacant
St Johnstone: Derek McInnes

Now not all of these are sackings. But by my reckoning that's five changes over the last close season and a further seven changes between the start of the 2009/10 season and today. Since April 2009 19 different men have tried their hand at managing in the SPL.

Motherwell, Celtic and Falkirk can take a special bow for two changes in that time.

At least nine clubs will start next season with a different manager than they started this season with.

In a 12 team league that is a hell of an attrition rate.

Look at this season's success stories. Rangers won the title, both Hamilton and St Johnstone pleasantly surprised. They stuck with their managers.

And Inverness, relegated last season, stuck with Terry Butcher. They bounced right back up.

Dundee United lost their manager but made a seamless transition by giving Peter Houston a chance at the job, not panicking when it went badly and then reaping the benefits of third place and a Scottish Cup final.

Stability won't always bring success. Changing managers is sometimes unavoidable. But I'd argue that when 75% of SPL clubs lose a manager (or two) over the course of not much more than a season, we're doing something wrong.

Summer sacking number one

A league cup final and 10th place in the SPL haven't been enough to save Gus MacPherson at St Mirren:

Gus MacPherson, the league's longest serving manager, is parting ways with St Mirren after almost seven years as manager with the Paisley club.

The Buddies avoided relegation to finish this season in 10th place in the Scottish Premier League.

A club statement read: "We would like to thank Mr MacPherson for all his work and the improvement in the club's league standing since his arrival.

"The board feel that the relationship had run its course and that the club requires a change of direction." (BBC)

A wind of change at the club?

This comes 24 hours after Gordon Scott left the board, with only the must cursory of explanations:

This afternoon Club Director, Gordon Scott resigned from the Board of St Mirren Football Club.

The Board of Directors would like to thank Gordon for all his efforts during his time on the Board and they would also like to wish him the best of success for the future.

The club website also refers to the outgoing manager as "Angus." Surely a first?

Interesting times ahead for St Mirren fans.

Looking back

A blast from the past, the last time St Mirren were in a Hampden cup final. Archie Macpherson has control of the microphone: