The knives are out for Motherwell. After yet another brutal display by the Steelmen that saw them concede 4 goals, manager Mark McGhee made his second ‘we are gash‘ speech of the week. Even their own players are getting in on the act now, that’s how desperate things have become. Defender Bob Malcolm reckons they’re playing like a lower division side at the minute, though he cant figure out why. Well Bob, you’d better figure out just why real quick before all the practice at being a lower league side gets put to good use come August next year.
Messrs Jefferies and Levein where at it again. Complaining, that is. The Kilmarnock gaffer felt his side where ‘destined to lose‘ to Inverness Caley – especially given Caley’s defensive tactics, while Dundee United manager Craig Levein was raging at Hamilton’s own use of defensive tactics as his side spluttered to a single point thanks to a Hamilton own goal. Apparently not happy at Accies’ 3-6-1 formation, which more than suffocated the midfield, Levein was left ‘extremely frustrated’ at Accies’ tactics.
“Play 3-6-1, get in peoples’ faces, kick them and when the ball is in the air jump into them and the referee doesn’t do anything about it. That set the pattern for the game and it lasted from the first minute until the fifth minute of injury time. I’m just hacked off tonight, they didn’t try and play, they tried to kick us, the referee let them away with it, the game descended into a farce.”
whines Levein.
Over in Edinburgh it’s all smiles as both Hibs and Hearts win on the same day for the first time in possibly ages if we could be bothered to look it up. Not so smiley is Jimmy Calderwood, following Aberdeen’s 2-0 defeat at Castle Greyskull, a defeat that prompted the Press and Journal to decry the game “another pointless exercise as Dons push self-destruct button again”. In all fairness, Aberdeen have not won at Ibrox since Haniball crossed the Alps, so given the respective forms of both teams it should not come as much of a surprise to all and sundry that Aberdeen would lose this game as well. Still, there was some grounds for optimism and who knows, a seventh placed finish is still a realistic possibility up in the North East.
And while we’re up in the north, how about Fort William eh? The mighty Fort got into double figures for the second time this season, this time a slender 10-0 defeat at the hands of Deveronvale. The defeat follows on from another 10-0 tanking, this time at the hands of Junior side Banks O’ Dee, a defeat that filled the Aberdeen side with such optimism that they’re seriously considering stepping up to the Highland League.
Oops, sorry. One more. Peterhead boss Neale Cooper was at a loss to explain why his side’s game against Stirling was not called off. Despite the worsening conditions, which where already pretty bad come kick-off, the game went ahead prompting the former Aberdeen players to say
The match should never have started. It was a farce. It was a great effort from the people who tried to clear the pitch before kick-off, but the sensible decision would have been to postpone it. It was impossible to get the ball down and play football so both teams were trying to get the ball over the top of the defences. It is very hard for me to analyse the 90 minutes or talk tactically about my team because it was just a farce, therefore a draw was the fairest outcome.
And here’s us thinking that hoofing the “ball over the defence” was a standard tactic down in the lower leagues. Judging by what Cooper said, there is clearly more to the SFL than we thought.
