You know, I spent a decent chunk of Tuesday evening working through an in-depth analysis of every SPL club's season, much in the same way I did last season. How antisocial am I?
But then I realised that, well, it was about as interesting as doing your taxes. A lot of my summaries were just stating the obvious, and it was going to involve the slagging off of the usual suspects - Massimo Donati, Bob Malcolm et al - and I couldn't see anybody actually having the patience to read to the finish without chewing their arm off at the banality of it all.
So, here it is in a rather condensed form.
For the Old Firm the difference between success and failure is the title. Therefore Rangers' season was a success and Celtic's was a failure. What else can you say?
Hearts recovered from last year's rubbish campaign to finish third, so I would call that a success too. Ditto Aberdeen, despite everyone associated with the club clearly thinking the contrary.
At the other end, the less said about Inverness' season the better. It seems St. Mirren and Killie are now destined to be fighting the drop every season, while Falkirk's increasingly apparent cash worries look set to keep them down there. Hamilton did a smashing job to stay up and will fancy their chances of doing so next year also.
Meanwhile, Dundee United, Hibs and Motherwell are too good to get stuck in the mire down below, but were a little short on the quality and the consistency to get a European place.
Regular readers will know that I love trotting out statistics to prove points, and I thought about scouring for a few to prove that this has been one of the poorest SPL seasons ever. But I just couldn't be bothered looking. We all know that this is the weakest Celtic team since John Barnes, and the weakest Rangers one since the early days of Graeme Souness (that's a heck of a long time). We also know that the third and fourth placed sides in the league are haemorrhaging players to the likes of Leicester City (Hearts skipper Robbie Neilson) and, well, wherever Bruno Aguiar, Jamie Smith and Scott Severin turn up. So while the standards at the top are dropping, the standards everywhere else are dropping as well. And as every SPL season ticket holder in the country will know, the football itself has been utterly mind numbing. With Setanta-gate building up to a massive implosion, there is light at the end of the tunnel - because the end of the tunnel is on fire.
Part of the reason my grieving period over Caley's relegation has been so short is the increasing realization that the games themselves will be more fun next year. We should win more. We should score more goals. We should be able to play more attractive football. The big two aside, everyone else in the top division last year played cagey, safety-first, increasingly route one football (the exceptions being Hibs and Dundee Utd who proved they had the quality to succeed with this style only sporadically).
The worst indictment I can make of SPL 08/09 is that I can't remember a season where I watched so few live SPL matches. Barring Old Firm day, I chose the English Premier League every time. The quality of the play may be better, but there is no doubt the entertainment value is streets ahead.
So, Scottish Premier League, you need to spend the summer thinking carefully about what you need to do to achieve more. Because every year you just drift nearer and nearer to the bottom of the class.
L.
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