Apologies for the lack of devotion over the last week and a half, peeps. I was, er, well, a bit lazy actually. But plenty to talk about in the last couple of weeks - Big Eck relegated with Birmingham (I told you so at New Year), Man U win the title (ditto), Fulham survive (which two months ago looked about as likely as Mike McCurry giving the away team a penalty at Ibrox - more later), Motherwell clinch a UEFA Cup spot (having them and QOS in Europe will do wonders for our coefficient, but not in a good way), but, unsurprisingly, it's the Great Unwashed that have been the focus of attention for Scottish football fans.
Oh, it all seemd so sweet and rosy for them after the Fiorentina game. An almost unheard of quadruple was still on the cards, there was still a bit of a cushion in the league thanks to games in hand, and the likes of Cuellar and Weir were showing reserves of stamina normally shown only by camels in the Sahara.
A few weeks on, and, quite frankly, it has all gone t*** up.
Unfortunately, for all the heroics of the UEFA cup run (if winning matches by virtue of boring the other team to suicide is heroism) all that will be remembered of it by all but the most devoted Gers out there are the scenes afterwards. In the space of one evening in Manchester, the wonderful reputation of Scottish football fans has been badly, maybe even fatally tarnished. Yes, it may have been a minority, but from the pictures on TV you can see that many hundreds were involved. It tells you something about the mindset of these people that they attacked the engineers who had come to fix the giant screen that had broken and sparked the trouble.
Were these people proper Rangers fans? I don't know. I don't care. All I know is that when Celtic reached the UEFA Cup final, they were a delight in Seville. And on that run they also managed to play big away games in Blackburn and Liverpool without a hint of trouble. And to cap it all, in front of the UEFA president himself, Rangers fans hauled out the good old sectarian songbook during the game itself.
Perhaps this is part of David Murray's plan to get Rangers into the Premier League - by making fans of Scottish football hate them so much they get chucked out. Mind you, the English are hardly likely to welcome them with open arms now, eh?
Anyway, enough of the anti-Rangers fan ranting, though it is fun. Let's focus at the pitch, where the helping hand that Mike McCurry gave them against Dundee United seems more distant after the draw at Fir Park yesterday (everything Craig Levein said is an echo of pretty much every Scottish football fan who has no Old Firm ties, and he's rapidly becoming a bit of a hero amongst them). How on Earth did Rangers blow this advantage? I think it was probably because their last five away games have produced three points (two of them were at Celtic Park, mind). But in each of those games, Rangers have played 4-5-1 and, consequently are struggling to score goals in them. If you're the home team against them, you're hardly going to adopt an offensive strategy! And so, with Rangers refusing to turn to Kris Boyd until the number of minutes left reaches single figures, the lack of offensive threat on the pitch is hurting them. It's a good idea against Werder Bremen, Fiorentina, Sporting Lisbon, but maybe not the way to go tomorrow night against St. Mirren, Wattie...
That said, there's still a fair bit of footie to play. Who would bet against Celtic blowing it at Tannadice on Thursday night?
And don't forget that Rangers have the opportunity to make up signficant grounds in goal difference at Love Street. I know it's a seven goal difference at the moment, but it wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility for them to win by four goals or more at Love Street, which could give the Tims just a little bit of a shake.
Anyway, we'll see.
L.
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