Inside Lefta blog about Scottish football

Saturday’s fixtures provided no real shocks, with the results pretty much going the way of the form teams.

Celtic overcame St Mirren, a welcome win to get them in the mood for a much anticipated Europa League fixture later in the week. Rangers’ preparation for the second game in their Champions League group on the other hand amounted to their third 0-0 draw in a row, this time against Aberdeen at Ibrox.

Falkirk got themselves off the bottom of the league following their 1-1 draw with Kilmarnock. Taking their place are SPL new boys St Johnstone who continued their excellent scoring record, but their defence continues to let them down as their opposition continually outscores the Perth side. This weekend was no exception: they scored twice, yet still lost 3-2 to Dundee United.

Motherwell and Hibs turned out to be an exciting enough game. At one point Hibs where playing a somewhat unusual 4-2-4 formation, something not regularly seen in football since the 1920’s. It’s that kind of cavalier approach to the game that landed John Hughes the Manager of the Month award for September. Hibs are now level on points with Rangers in third spot and could jump into second place should Rangers lose the first Old Firm derby of the season and Hibs overcome Dundee United. Hearts also moved up the table following their 2-1 win over Hamilton.

In the First division, we have a new leader. Queen of the South took advantage of Ross County’s slip-up against Dundee to leapfrog the Dingwall side. The Doonhamers thrashed Dunfermline 4-1. Managerless Morton picked up their first 3 points of the season with a 1-0 win over fellow basement dwellers Airdrie United.

Inverness CT are continuing to make heavy weather of their First division campaign. Caley went down 3-2 at home to Partick Thistle. The battle of the promoted teams was won by Ayr United, Kenneth Connolly scoring after 12 minutes to secure the points against Raith Rovers. Despite their off-field problems, Stirling continue to do stirling work in the league. They 2-1 win over Cowdenbeath moves them 3 points clear of Alloa, who lost at home to Arbroath. In the Third Division, Livingston started the week with a win against Queens Park, but somewhat surprisingly lost 3-1 away at East Stirlingshire in mid-week in the re-arranged opening day fixture. Berwick continue to lead the division: they won 2-0 at bottom side Montrose.

In mid-week, our remaining European contenders took to the field once more. Rangers faced a tricky tie against Spanish side Sevilla. Given their less than impressive start to the season, there was plenty to be scared of. Rangers had a good first half and should have been awarded a penalty when Naismith was fouled by Konko but the referee waved play-on. How the game would have gone had Rangers scored first is a matter of debate, but what is certainly not a matter of debate are the four second-half goals in 25 minutes from Sevilla’s Abdoulay Konko, Adriano, Luis Fabiano and Frédéric Kanouté that killed the tie very quickly.

The following day it was Celtic’s chance to show-up their Glasgow rivals when they took on Rapid Vienna in a game much anticipated by both fans and press alike. The cause of the tension between these two sides stems from a bad-tempered European Cup Winners’ Cup game in 1984. Rapid claimed that defender Weinhofer was struck by a bottle thrown from the crowd. Despite claims from Celtic and the fans that the bottle had in fact landed quite some distance from the Austrian, UEFA forced the tie to be replayed (Celtic had won the original tie 3-0) at Old Trafford, which Rapid won 1-0.

The goal was scored by Peter Pacult, ironically enough the manager of the same Rapid Vienna side that came to Glasgow on Thursday. The 2009 version of this fixture ended in a 1-1 draw, with Rapid scoring after only 3 minutes when Nikica Jelavic took advantage of some slack defending in the Celtic penalty area. Scott McDonald later equalised for Celtic, but the result leaves them bottom of the group, after Hamburg’s 4-2 win over Hapoel Tel-Aviv (the team to which Celtic had lost their opening game in the group).

Scottish Football Under The Spotlight

Also taking place this week was the open forum debate into the state of the Scottish game. Inside Left had submitted some questions to the “Scottish Football Under The Spotlight” forum, but according to our delegate and fellow Inside Lefter Andy Kennedy, they never made it to the platform.

The main point we where interested in was the panels view on a pyramid structure. Our view had always been that most, if not all teams in the Scottish league system would welcome a setup that would allow them to promote themselves up the league and potentially the Holy Grail of the SPL (and the regulation poundings by the OF). Somewhat to our surprise, it seemed that most Junior sides actually thought the idea of upward mobility was not really in their interest. Most would rather win ‘local’ silverware and compete against their local rivals than against the likes of East Fife, Montrose, Dunfermline or Rangers.

It’s an angle we’ve not though of before here. We always presumed that the removal of the glass ceiling that limited clubs ambitions would be high on the list of priorities for chance, but I guess we underestimated the level of ambition in the Scottish game.

But by far the most depressing aspect of the conference was the fact that the majority of those attending had little or no faith in the report that Henry McLeish was putting together and the impact it is going to have on the game. Henry McLeish himself knows that, like every other report before his own, his final report in nothing but a series of recommendations and that he has no power or authority to force those recommendations through the byzantine league structure, the very same league structure that has come under a lot of flak lately. In other words, it is unlikely that the turkeys will vote for Christmas.

A good write-up of the debate can be found at the excellent Voices of Football site.