Posts Tagged ‘St Johnstone’

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Season 2009/10 Review: The Scottish Football Blog

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

The Scottish Football Blog reviews season 2009/10

WITH the season now finally over, it’s time to look back at the season just past. Inside Left asked his fellow Scottish football bloggers for their opinion on how the season was for them.

The Scottish Football Blog gets us under way in the first of the series with their review of season 2009/10. Despite the gloom, there have been some positive things to come out of this season…

It has been a season of money and managers.

It’s been intriguing and frustrating but it could hardly be called vintage. Half the clubs in the SPL failed to score an average of a goal game. The teams finishing in first, sixth and eleventh have a combined debt creeping towards £80 million. It’s hard to see how that can be sustainable in a country of our size with ever diminishing interest in the game.

There was much talk of a real challenge to the Old Firm. Yet Rangers in penury and Celtic taking leave of their sense for most of the season still produced a gap of 18 points at the death. They moved backwards but so did the rest of us. Add a creaking SFA, some poor refereeing and another missed World Cup into the mix and it’s a depressing outlook.

Grounds for optimism? St Johnstone are proof that well run clubs can succeed. Ross County have at least hinted at a hitherto ignored depth of talent and potential that might offer some salvation. If the McLeish Report is not a cure-all, it does at least stimulate conversation.

“.. add a creaking SFA, some poor refereeing and another missed World Cup into the mix and it’s a depressing outlook.”

The trick will be to build momentum around that conversation – and bloggers have a part to play in that – and turn studies and good intention into improvement: Improvement in the national team, improvement throughout the leagues, improvement in the treatment of fans. If anything this season crystallized the crisis. We can’t run away from it now.

And then, at the bitter end, a sign that everything might be alright. If our football still has the power to enthral, captivate, amaze and astound the way Motherwell’s draw with Hibs did then we’ve still got something unique and special to work with.

- The Scottish Football Blog

Inside Left put up its own season review, “How Was The Season for You” a while back.  We’re interested in finding out how the season was for you – leave us a comment, or send your article to us and we’ll put them on the site. You can get in touch with us via the contact page.

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06.05// The Midweek Ballbag

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

LET’s be honest. Not many fans would stick around for too long if they found their team down 2-4 at halftime, but those who did last night at Fir Park where rewarded for their loyalty as Motherwell clawed back a 2-6 deficit to earn a valuable point in a thrilling 6-6 draw againt Hibs.

It’s not the first time this season that Motherwell found themselves at the end of a drubbing (they lost 6-1 to Rangers in back in December, two weeks before Rangers got onto the record books again with a 7-1 spanking of Dundee United), but at least in this game they showed some spunk (steady!).

There was actually a lot to play for in this fixture: a win for Motherwell would have secured European football for Craig Brown’s men (they’d enter the Europa League Second qualifying round), while a win for Hibs would have lifted them two points clear of the Steelmen into fourth place.

John Hughes must be feeling the pressure. His Hibees have never dropped out of the top five all season and until March where doing a good job keeping up with Celtic in second plce. But a run of games that has seen them without a win in their last six games and which included heavy defeats to St Johnstone and Accies had dropped them out of the running. If the message boards are to be believed, Hibs fans are getting restless, with plenty of threads calling for Hughes to be sacked.

The Scottish Football Blog has more on this game, including all twelve goals!

Fans of Aberdeen where again rewarded for their endurance by watching another set of happy, cheering away-supporters make their way up the west side of the South Stand after the final whistle. The Dons’ season took another lurch towards the comically tragic when they do what they’re good at, namely taking a lead and then sitting back and letting their opponents out-score them.

The 2-1 defeat at home to Kilmarnock is the latest in a series of pitiful performances that should hopefully spell the end for the majority of the current Aberdeen squad. The irony in this game are legion, namely:

» Kilmarnock have won only 8 games all season, two of those coming against Aberdeen;
» Killie have only scored six away goals all season, with two of those coming against Aberdeen last night;
» the winning goal was scored by Kevin Kyle, a player Aberdeen are trying to sign.

For the 6,000-odd supporters making their way down Pittodrie Street for this game was just another low point in the season.  McGhee has promised wholesale changes over the summer, but I don’t believe a word of it. Judging by his signings this season (Nelson, Paterson, MacLean, Ifil, Marshall, Grassi and Ross) there’s really not much to look forward to next season either.

The goal-cavalcade at Fir Park more than made up for the lack of goals in the remaining games in the SPL last night.

Falkirk‘s goalless draw against St Johnstone made the prospects of their SPL survival that little bit harder. The Bairns went into the game level on points with Kilmarnock,  but with Killie winning at Pittodrie, next Saturday sees the battle for survival go down to the wire. Steven Pressley promised at the start of his tenure as Falkirk manager to keep the Bairns in the SPL, a promise he could still make good if he beats Kilmarnock at the weekend.

Dundee United and Hearts played out a 0-0 draw at Tynecastle that finally killed of Hearts’ hopes of European football. Unless Hearts beat Celtic 11-0 next weekend and Dundee United prevent the Hibs goalmachine from scoring, the Jambo’s will have to contend themselves with a top-half finish this season and dreams of what might have been if they hadn’t been so crap before the New Year.

St Mirren can still repeat last season’s final 11th place if they lose at home to Aberdeen on Saturday and Kilmarnock beat Falkirk on the same day. Last night they served up some typical ‘end of season fare‘,  as the BBC put it, against an already safe Hamilton Accies. Between them, these two managed eleven shots on target, suggesting an attacking end-to-end game, but it wasn’t. It was dull. It ended nil-nil. It mattered little.

One more weekend to go lads, and season 2009/10 is but a distant, and faintly unpleasant memory. What have been your highlights of the season? Anything that stick out, and anything that makes you clench your arsecheeks together?

Leave us a comment!

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Aberdeen 1 St Johnstone 3. For the love of God, make it stop.

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

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Preview: St Johnstone v Aberdeen

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

It’s been a while since Aberdeen took to the field, but tonight the lads get a chance of a nice runaround against a team that for most of the season has been below us in the league but which, largely through our own fault rather than their outstanding form, now find themselves above us, if only by a single point.

A combination of early Cup exits has meant we’ve not had too much to write about since our last exploits against Hamilton Accies on the 6th March. About the only thing worth mentioning about the game, other than the game marked Zander Diamond’s 200th appearance for the club (and what a way to celebrate, scoring the equalizer on 75 minutes) and the fact that the Dons where dismal was the low number of away supporters. According to some reports, only 450 turned up for the game, compared with last seasons fixture where we filled the away end at New Douglas Park.

It’s a(nother) sign, if one where needed, of the dissatisfaction with the current situation at the club. At the risk of depressing myself and the general readership I’ll not go into it again. If I was to take one positive out of it, it would be that the point salvaged at least means we still have a small chance of making into the top six.

Admittedly it’s an outside chance, but with Hearts losing on Saturday to Motherwell the gap between ourselves and sixth place remains only(!) seven points. We have two games in hand (this one tonight and Dundee United on Saturday) to claw back that difference, with the game on Saturday being interesting as Hearts are at home to Hibs in the second Edinburgh derby game of the season. Wins for Hibs and Aberdeen would certainly put the seagull back amongst the pigeons, and if St Johnstone would be so kind as to lose to Celtic at Parkhead on the same day, we’d only be 1 point of sixth place, and a hope of at least achieving something this season.

Our run-in, post the United game, includes a tricky away fixture at Ibrox, but after that, we’ve got St Mirren, Kilmarnock and St Johnstone (again) before the league splits, games where we could “easily”) salvage our season. Aside from Hearts, St Johnstone have probably the trickiest run-in to come, having to play Celtic, Dundee United and Rangers again before the end of the season, as well as Falkirk who by that time (if not already, hopefully) are going to make every game tough for their opponents as they fight for SPL survival.

Bizarrely enough (call it Karma), for a while I thought our biggest rivals for the sixth place is Kilmarnock. The Ayrshire side have done well to claw themselves back from the brink. Six points of the bottom may not seem much, but until the 2-0 home defeat at the hands of Rangers back on the 9th, the gap of 11 points (and only four games, meaning they’ll have to beat Celtic, Aberdeen and Hearts, unlikely somehow) has put them out of contention.

The last time the two teams met in Perth was back in February 2002 with Aberdeen inflicting a narrow 0 – 1 defeat upon the Saints in a Scottish Premier match. A full form-guide is here (albeit somewhat confusing and unpleasant on the eye) but in summary: Aberdeen have not lost in Perth since 2000, so if the form guide is anything to go by, it’s a safe three points for the Dons.

How do I see it? It’s going to be another tricky, clenched-arsed game, but what game isn’t these days? I reckon the Dons will pull it off – don’t ask me why, the planets are aligned or something. A narrow 1-0 win.

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The Scottish Cup Cavalcade!

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Back in the day when an Aberdeen appearance in a Scottish Cup final was a reasonably regular occurrence, the prospect of playing some lower Division canon-fodder was generally greeted in the same manner that the owner of an abattoir welcomes another delivery of mangy cows and sheep to his premises. We’d hack and slice our way through our hapless opponents in a determined, if not always pretty fashion, to emerge victorious and quite often blood stained at the end of it all. Yes, football was a man’s game in them days…

But oh, how the ravages of time have made a seemingly innocuous game against a team that’s fourth from the bottom of the First division the sort of affair that would have you watching the highlights from behind the sofa through the fingers of your hands, your buttocks clenched so tight that not even the most perfectly formed gaseous excretions could get out, and cramp sets in after the first five minutes.

I realise I am being rather hard on my beloved AFC of late (ref: our previous posting), but fuck it, I feel like a right spanner walking around IKEA on a Saturday morning in my replica top being pointed and laughed at by small children; the parents are generally not much better either. Things have got to change, starting tomorrow. So, back the meat wagon up against the doorway at Stark’s Park and herd those Raith Rovers players into the whirling knives of our killer attack.

Oh, there are some other games on as well, by the way. (more…)

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Damn you Andrew Little! (or: “The Scottish Fitba Review”)

Monday, January 25th, 2010

In a remarkable weekend of Scottish fitba in which the league leaders across all four divisions either saved or dropped valuable points in injury time, Inside Left comes out smelling of roses, as the predictions we made on Friday turn out to be almost correct.

I was actually a minute or so away from cleaning up at the bookies until Rangers youngster Andrew Little scored to earn the defending champions a point, and deny Hearts their win at Ibrox in six years. The potential winnings would not have meant retiring to a life of golf and international jet travel, but it would have meant an upgrade from the usual “6 small margueritas” to the more decadent “3 medium margueritas” down at our local Dominos.

T’was not to be however, all of which means that this will be the last time I’ll be bemoaning the failure of “the emergence of young talent coming through the ranks” and all that bollocks. I mean, the 91st minute. At Ibrox. I ask you.. (more…)

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