I would probably be enjoying the SPL's relegation battle rather more if it wasn't for the fact that ICT are firmly embedded in it, but this year's dogfight is without doubt the most exciting, and the most difficult to call, since 04/05, when Inverness (back in those hard-to-believe days when Craig Brewster seemed like the next big thing in Scottish football management) hit an absurd run of form post-xmas and, rather than returning straight back to the first division from whence they came, instead nearly nicked a top six place. In the end, Livingston produced a great escape under Richard Gough, Dunfermline did the same with Jim Leishman at the helm, Dundee United came into the final day on the brink of being downed, and in the end it was Jim Duffy's Dundee who slid down a tier. Just like every team to finish bottom since 2001 - with the exception of Motherwell, who came last in a season when no-one was promoted, and Gretna (the less said the better) - Dundee are still in division one, along with Dunfermline, Livi, St. Johnstone and Partick Thistle.
If that doesn't tell you how catastrophic relegation can be, I don't know what does.
This year, the pendulum has fairly swung back and forth between potential candidates. Back in August I had newly-promoted Hamilton, along with Caley and St. Mirren, as the likely bottom three. The Buddies were the first in trouble, but by November it was the Accies, who had started the season so strongly, who were on the skids. Inverness' malaise around the turn of the year saw them as the first team to get properly distanced at the bottom, but 14 points from 8 matches under the messiah that is Terry Butcher upset the apple cart once more. Falkirk were the next to hit bottom, but are hanging onto the rest with their finger nails. Hamilton (1 win in 7) are suddenly only six points clear of the drop, despite being eighth, while Inverness have only 4 points leeway despite being the form team of the bottom six (the gubbing by Falkirk not withstanding).
St. Mirren and Kilmarnock, meanwhile, have chosen without doubt the worst possible time to well and truly hit the skids. The Midden have gone ten without a win, though six of those have been draws. If you think that's bad, then check out how Killie are going; Jim Jefferies last saw his side win a league game thirteen games ago, when with ten men they came from behind to beat Hibs at Easter Road. How they are crying out for that sort of backbone now, after a tame defeat at Hearts left them tenth and without a league win in this calendar year. This is the same team who, in mid-September, went to Ibrox in second place in the league. Ten points from the first four games, only twenty (including just five wins) from the next twenty-seven. They have the worst home record, a heck of a feat considering ICT have until recently been incapable of stringing two passes together on their own turf.
Jim Jefferies' tenure at Rugby Park is now into its eighth year, quite a feat. But last year they finished eleventh, and with a budget that now rivals that of a 17 year old mother of three for frugality, added to the fact that star young players like Steven Naismith and Kris Boyd are long gone, has meant that the holes in the team have had to be filled by players like Gavin Skelton, Grant Murray, Craig Bryson and Allan Russell - not bad players, but guys who don't really belong much higher than the first division. The biggest problem is up front, where David Fernandez's record in blue-and-white of 6 goals in seventy-three appearances tells you everything, and the top scorers are Danny Invincibile (a wide midfielder) and Jamie Hamill (a full-back). Even Caley's forwards score more goals.
Quite frankly, Kilmarnock are the "sleepers" of this battle; no-one has really noticed them sliding into the mire, but they are the ones who are struggling most for any sort of result. They have Falkirk at home on Saturday; talk about a six pointer! And considering it is public knowledge that the Rugby Park finances, for all their prudence, do not look good on the balance sheet, you wouldn't be surprised if they were the latest prisoners trapped in the Scottish Football League, along with the rest of them.
L.
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