The trouble with running a blog and having to take compulsory family holidays is that while your correspondent was working his way down the slopes in an Elvis-esque way (by which I mean a fat sweaty guy wearing a jumpsuit and ornate scarf, all the while high on painkillers following a comedy fall in the car park on the morning of the first day), the world of Scottish football moved on without me.
And if you thought finding out anything about Scottish football was a complete bastard here in Holland, trying to find out who won the game between Peterhead and Dumbarton whilst atop a mountain somewhere in the middle of Germany is next to impossible.
So it was that in more or less complete ignorance I returned home, frustratingly unaware of anything that had transpired while I was gone. And yes, ignorance is bliss and all that, but for someone running a blog, ignorance is fatal. But, truth be told, having been away from the laptop for as long as I have been, it has been refreshing to have a break from the pressure of getting Inside Left into the number 87 spot in the Scotblog awards for next year.
Aye, I was getting used to not having to spend my evening researching articles for the site (no really, I don't just make this shit up, some real actual research takes place) and apathy was starting to set in, so it is with some degree of Herculean effort that I dragged myself back behind the keyboard and back onto these pages. So to quote Bill Hicks "it's great to be here wherever I am, I always like it when I'm here".
Spoiler: most of what you are about to read is pretty old hat. Apologies in advance... One of the more pleasing things I discovered when I returned was how accurate my pre-holiday predictions where.
Rangers won the Old Firm derby thanks to a Maurice Edu injury-time goal, thus effectively ending the season as any kind of contest.
It's hard to see Rangers giving up that 13 point lead, especially when you take into consideration that they've not lost a game since November. It's funny when you consider that only a few months ago most of us foresaw only doom and gloom down Edmiston Drive. The club was in serious financial peril, they'd had a pretty horrendous European campaign behind them - failing to win a single game - and Walter Smith was telling anyone prepared to listen that the whole thing was Royally fucked. But here we are in March and Rangers sit proudly atop the SPL, they're in one Cup final this season already and are two games away from another one. Walter Smith has stayed on (without a contract, mind), the squad has remained intact and this week news emerged that someone might actually interested in buying the club.
RFC Holdings, a Guernsey based company fronted by Andrew Ellis, are said to be entering a period of 'due diligence' (a fancy term for what is effectively looking through all the drawers and cupboards for anything of value, basically the sort of thing I do myself when visiting my in-laws after everyone has gone to bed). Whether that will result in an actual offer remains to be seen, but if nothing else at least Ellis is making the right sounds. He, though RFC Holdings has made the retention of the clubs two prize assets, Walter Smith and Kris Boyd, their priority while also working to tie Nacho Novo and Kirk Broadfoot down to longer term contracts.
The financial security the deal may bring should put Rangers back on firmer financial footing and result in a collective sigh of relief from the stands and the boardroom. The only potential drawback is that Ellis is a property developer and that in a previous life he tried to buy Queens Park Rangers and move them to a location near Heathrow. It's hard to see him getting away with moving Rangers away from Govan, but money talks, as they say.
With Dundee dropping points (they had to come back from 2-0 down to earn a single point in their 2-2 draw against Inverness Caley) and with both Hibs and Scotland winning (of which more later), it only remained for Aberdeen to complete a quartet of correct predictions.
Alas, t'was not to be. While Rangers continue to thrive, the only team to beat them this season, Aberdeen, continue to struggle. The rot that has set in at Pittodrie, the same rot that has not seen the Dons win a game since the end of January and the same rot that has seen the Reds crash out to Raith Rovers in the Scottish Cup was temporarily halted with a 1-1 draw away at Hamilton Accies, though once again the Dons had to come from behind to claim the points. There's been much talk of a season of transition at Pittodrie, which is certainly true if turning a top four side into a bottom four side in one season can be called transition. With only six games left to the league split and seven points behind sixth-placed Hearts and 17 points off fourth place, McGhee has his work cut out for him if he's to achieve the only hope of redeeming anything from this season, namely European football.
Finally, just one other thing I quickly want to mention before I go:
It was good to see Scotland get off to a good start with new manager Craig Levein. Not that I saw it mind you, but I hear from good sources that Scotland put in a good performance despite being under the cosh for most of the game. The fact that our opponents on the night, the Czech Republic, are a team we'd be facing again in the Euro Qualifiers makes the victory (1-0, Scott Brown) all the sweeter. Kris Boyd made a return to the national fold, coming on for his Rangers team mate Kenny Miller in the 60th minute. He was met with a rousing reception (it says here) which is a good thing if you ask me. I know Boyd's return to the side was not met with favour by some of my fellow bloggers, but he's a decent striker when he wants to be and I think under Levein, a manager with a tougher skin and better ideas than the meek and mild Burley Boyd will thrive.
Right, that's it. Anyone out there have any opinions about SPL league expansion?
No comments:
Post a Comment