One overwhelming thought comes to mind as I sit down to hammer out a blogpost previewing the SPL season...
What on earth am I doing trying to write a preview in July?!
The weather gods have not been kind to Scottish football the last couple of seasons - in fact, the only way they could have been crueller would have been to tie it up, soak it in petrol and lop off it's ear to the sound of Stealer's Wheel. Partly because of this, partly because the European Championship follows the climax of the 2011-12 campaign (yeah, right, as if Scotland will be in it, and as if any non-Scottish SPL players will be good enough to play in it), and partly as a chance to get our footie on the telly before the proper football...sorry, the English Premier League...starts, the season starts on 23 July this year.
Kind of. We have a full round of fixtures on opening weekend. But Celtic and Rangers whinged about missing out on glamour friendlies which are worth a fair bit of cash to them, so the league has, as usual, pandered to them, and agreed that any team could defer a fixture in the early stages of the season if they wished. Depressingly, Hibernian also took up this offer, so the second and third weeks of the season will be disrupted while Celtic go play in the Dublin Super Cup (it might have Inter Milan in it, but having the 'tic and a League of Ireland XI hardly makes it even a little bit super), Hibs play a 'glamour' friendly against Sunderland - since when has Sunderland ever been described as glamourous? - and Rangers take on Chelsea.
Forgive this writer for having a little bit of schadenfreude if these sides are hit by a nasty bout of fixture congestion in six months time.
But the early start makes writing a preview mightily difficult, because the transfer window is open for a full 39 days after the first SPL game. Thus, barely anyone - only perhaps Kilmarnock, St. Mirren and the newly promoted Dunfermline - has done all their business. The Old Firm have spent only £1.5 million between them, bringing in a total of four players. They, and everyone else, are biding their time, waiting for free agent players to lower their wage demands, and their aspirations, as the end of August comes closer and the need to find a club and a paycheck becomes more desperate.
I was caught out in impressive style because of this last season, even when the season started in mid-August; having tipped Kilmarnock for the drop, they promptly went and signed Alexei Eremenko and made me look like even more of a plonker than usual. I think they call this complete and utter ineptness with predictions 'Murray Walker syndrome'. Obviously the Old Firm will take the top two places, and Hearts look good value for third, but there's very little to choose between the other nine teams just now, I reckon.
So anything I write in the upcoming two part preview, which I aim to have done before the season starts on Saturday (of course, I can't really call it a preview if I finish it after that, can I?) needs to be taken with not so much a pinch of salt, but a full shaker's worth, with a pepper pot and spice rack alongside. Capiche?
Anyway, for tasters, here's how I think the table will look...
1. Celtic
2. Rangers
3. Hearts
4. Dundee Utd
5. Aberdeen
6. Hibernian
7. Motherwell
8. Inverness
9. St. Johnstone
10. Kilmarnock
11. Dunfermline
12. St Mirren
Thoughts?
L.
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