Football Shorts

Aberdeen inch another three points closer to third spot and what will no doubt be another short European campaign. The win over plucky Kilmarnock at Rugby Park last night involved a memorable come-back from a goal down, both goals (or 'brace' to use the correct terminology) coming from Reds top scorer Lee Miller. After Miller received his December Player of The Month Award, Aberdeen gaffer Jimmy Calderwood expressed his fears about losing his on-form striker but now seems resolved to hold on to Miller mainly, we suspect, because no offers have come in for him and because Aberdeen only have Darren Mackie up front to pose any kind of threat in up-ing the 'GF' column. Opposite number Jim Jefferies is pretty radge about the defeat but then again, I cant remember him not being radge about anything these days, he is turning into the Victor Meldrew of Scottish Football.

For plucky (or crap, depends on how rose tinted your view of Scottish lower-league football is) Foress Mechanics, their dream of playing European football next season is over. Their slender 6-1 defeat at Station Park last night in the Scottish Cup put an end to their ambitions. For Forfar, future financial fortunes favour the Angus side, for they get to play Rangers, who in turn beat Division One leaders St. Johnstone 2-1 at McDairmid Park. As we highlighted the other day, it was a case of 'between the devil and the deep blue sea' for The Loons who they faced: both the Saints and the Gers inflicted 6-0 defeats in recent years but who knows, on the day they might get the breaks, the run of the ball, the rub of the green, the luck of the Iri.. Fuck no, they'll get thumped. Again.

For Rangers, the win was plain sailing, but the game was marred by a bunch of malcontents protesting at the way chairman and knight-of-the-realm David Murray was running the club. Well, we say running, but 'Massive Clearance Sale' seems more appropriate in light of recent reports. The on-going Boyd debacle - is he or is he not going to Birmingham - has called into question the financial stability of the club given the credit crunch and all that. While some at the club, notably manager Walter Smith and assistant manager Ally McCoist reckon they don't need Boyd and will still win the league without him it has to be said that everything that seems to go wrong in Govan brings with it a plethora of 'Rangers in Crisis' stories. To wit, remember last year when Rangers got put out by FBK Kaunas? They got over that defeat and the subsequent loss of Carlos Cuellar (who clearly didn't rate a good CIS Insurance Cup run as highly as a run-out in the Aston Vila first XI) pretty sharpish, buying in a few decent players and generally doing rather well in all competitions. Sure, the furore around the sanity/integrity/blue-nosedness of David Murray and his cohorts are a distraction best resolved pretty damn quick, but lets take a long-term view here: the money that Boyd's sale will bring in will ease the clubs debts, and hell, even without Boyd, Rangers will still trounce pretty much everyone anyway (except Celtic possibly). And it's not as if they're searching behind the sofa for effective strikers.

Love Street, Paisley is not dead yet! St Mirren yesterday overcame Brechin City (with the chrome-domed Jimmy Duffy in charge) meaning that they'll play either one of Inverurie Locos or, more likely, Motherwell once that game eventually gets played.

Jesus lads, did ye see the deal Manchester City are putting together for Kaka? A bid of around 100m euros, with a weekly wage of £500,000! Can you imagine how many players Murray would have to sell if they put in an offer like that? Speaking of transfers, it's been a pretty unspectacular transfer window so far in Scotland. We're about halfway through this particular window, and what has happened so far? Lets see ...

Steven Pressley, who must be nearly 70 by now has joined Falkirk, where he's joins up with other senior citizens like Jackie McNamara and Lee Bullen. Richie Byrne, who up until a few seasons ago was to be found at the back with Aberdeen has gone to Inverness together with Filipe Morais who joins from Hibs. Talk about being sent into the wilderness, but then again, Morais does hang around casinos and kick seven shades out of doormen

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