Motherwell – Craig Cairns (@craigcairns001)
Perhaps fooled by their resounding play-off final victory over Rangers – and the eloquence of Louis Moult during his press conference after signing for the club – I suggested that Motherwell would finish in the top six this season. Like Ian Baraclough himself, I allowed my overeagerness to get away from me and made a bold and rash prediction.
I was warned: ‘Their defence is still mice, they can barely even stand’, they said.
‘But they have signed well over the current and previous transfer windows’, I replied.
Scott McDonald had returned to the club to form an effective partnership with Lee Erwin. Stephen Pearson had also returned, adding exactly what was missing from the centre of midfield, and Baraclough had made them difficult to beat at home.
Erwin improved immeasurably in the second half of the season and, in an attacking sense, his departure has hurt them more than most. His dynamism and ability to create a scoring opportunity out of innocuous situations was never going to be replaced, no matter how many strikers you sign. Combining the qualities of Louis Moult, Wes Fletcher, David Clarkson and Theo Robinson would probably still fall short of what Erwin brought to Fir Park in the second half of last season.
But, even still, I completely ignored that Baraclough had signed five strikers while completely ignoring that they have one of the softest central defences in the league and still don’t have a right-back. Furthermore, they recruited Joe Chalmers to compete with, and eventually replace, an ageing Stevie Hammell. A player who failed at Championship level before being given a contract by Baraclough.
Mark ‘Ye Know’ McGhee may give the side a lift, he may improve the squad over the month of January but going by his comments so far, even he seems reluctant to talk positively about this group of players. I was wrong: I can’t see Motherwell making the top six this season. I also can’t see McGhee’s Wikipedia page improving as a result of returning to the club.
Dedryck Boyata – Robert Borthwick (@RFBorthwick)
When Dedryck Boyata strolled off a private jet in Glasgow and straight into a Paul The Tim selfie, it seemed to me like a match made in heaven. Celtic had lost the very impressive Jason Denayer as he returned to his parent club Manchester City and Virgil van Dijk was already planning for an inevitable switch to the shining lights of the English Premiership. A considerable void was there to be filled and I predicated on my full Terrace Podcast debut that Dedryck Boyata would be more than capable of picking up where the aforementioned duo had left off. As far as prediction’s go, this was my ‘Millennium Bug’ moment.
There were happier times, though. The big Belgian made an immediate impression in his opening Champions League Qualifying Round matches, notching goals against Stjarnan and Qarabag FK. He was making himself a nuisance in the opposition’s area and ruffling some low-standard European feathers. However this was simply a pre-cursor to the bigger nuisance he makes of himself in his own 18-yard-box. Unfortunately for the Hoops, it is to his own side’s detriment. For every bit of good he does, he manages to completely undo it with a comical mistake or slip. He scored a goal at New Douglas Park, for example. But this only came after he’d been rolled quicker than a cigarette at a Craft Beer festival; Gramoz Kurtaj the beneficiary on this occasion as he raced through on goal and struck a sweet shot past a helpless Craig Gordon. Two weeks prior to his Hamilton rollercoaster, Hearts had come calling to Parkhead with their flat back 10 formation. He watched as a spectator as his side threw punch after punch at a resilient Jambos back line, occasionally called in to action to swat Sam Nicholson away and start a new attack. In the 90th minute though, he had a rush of blood to the head that was so quick and confusing he could have featured in one of Pele’s famed viagra commercials. He jumped out of position to chase a ball he had no right to, left Efe Ambrose exposed and the often-clumsy Nigerian had to define the phrase ‘taking one for the team’ to halt a goalscoring opportunity. When Efe Ambrose appears to be your most reliable centre-half, questions need to be asked.
The issue with Boyata certainly isn’t fitness, nor is he a victim of jumping up to a higher standard league – he spent time in Eredivisie before his switch to the East End of Glasgow. I think it’s down to one of two things. One is that Celtic tend to dominate possession in their matches. The ball is recycled through Brown/Bitton/Johansen, and the full-backs are used to good effect, feeding or crossing for strikers. To cut this point short, I think he might just be really bored. He feels the need to jump out and stretch his legs every now and then. Two, he is finding his feet as a regular at a club with lofty expectations, inconsistency is a hallmark of a young player in a new and pressure-filled environment. And three, which I just thought of, is that he’s deliberately winding me up after I poured my faith into him to be a star. Given his tendency toward the inexplicable, Number Three holds as much water as the other two.
When the season draws to a close, Boyata will almost certainly have a league winners medal hanging around his neck. Fortunately for him, and indeed fortunately for Celtic they have enough in midfield and attack to atone for the majority of mistakes that he will make at the heart of the defence. Ronny Deila needs to start looking at a bigger picture though. A European picture, with Champions League Group Stage’s sketched dead in the centre. If Celtic are to get to those heights once more, Paul The Tim will need to be the welcome party for players of a better standard than Dedryck Boyata. He can get away with it at Scottish Premiership level but he’s certainly not the POTY candidate I expected. Given my erratic form in predictions thus far, I now expect Mr. Boyata to end the season as top goalscorer and oust Vincent Kompany from the Belgium set up. Given his even more erratic form, he could just as easily end up filed under ‘Scheidt’ and shipped out in January. The only safe prediction when he’s around? Unpredictability.
Aberdeen – Craig Fowler (@craigfowler86)
What? Pfft… I’m never wrong.
Oh, all right. When Aberdeen won at Tynecastle, so convincingly, having raced into a 3-0 half-time lead against the league’s third strongest side, away from home, I was adamant that this was a team who could win the league. I remember being quite forthright when I said it, as if it was some grand proclamation which would one day rank up there with Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, and not just said by some diddy journalist who often lives in his own wee fantasy world. I also remember being quite irked after listening to a Celtic podcast where they had disregarded Aberdeen’s capabilities. They described Ash Taylor as “hopeless” – at least I think that’s who it was, since they couldn’t remember his name – before making several other disparaging comments about the first-team. Ha! Aberdeen showed them. Then when they went to Tynecastle and won. It was the least upset/deflated/frustrated I had been after a Hearts home loss. Personally, I was hurting. Professionally, I was excited. There was a real prospect of a title race from outside Glasgow and I was its number one fan. I even compared them to Atletico Madrid!
They haven’t won a game since. On Saturday they were fortunate not to loss to Motherwell at home. It’s finished. Title challengers don’t go on such barren runs and still emerge on top at the end of the season. I would now like to take the time to tell you how this happened, but unfortunately I haven’t gotten the first idea. I’m not sure anyone has. How do you go from beating everyone, home and away, to looking like you’re never going to win again this season? Derek McInnes may have chopped and changed the team too much. Mark Reynolds’s return may have upset a settled defence. Ryan Jack’s injury wouldn’t have helped. But all of these, combined, don’t explain such a drastic drop off in performances and results.
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