Shaughan McGuigan (@ShaughanM)
Often, when one football team hasn’t triumphed over another, or at a certain venue for a significant period of time, it’ll be given some historical reference point to really hammer home how poor the record is. Unfortunately, April 1962 appears to be a pretty lacklustre month for earth-shaking events, so the best I could muster was that Philip “The Silver Fox” Schofield had just been born the last time Raith Rovers won at Celtic Park.
There’s been a smattering of close calls and a handful of draws in the 53 years since, but it’s fair to say that the Rovers fans gathered in the corner weren’t exactly drunk on bravado and expectation before Wednesday’s League Cup tie, especially when the teams were announced. Ronny Deila was something of a spoil sport, picking a disappointingly strong side, which suggested he was terrified of becoming the first Celtic manager to lose at home to Rovers since Britain’s finest television presenter was on a diet that consisted entirely of milk.
They weren’t taking any chances on the luck front either, with Hoopy the Huddle Hound leading four, yes four, mascots off the park just before kick-off. Mind you, considering Celtic’s attendances these days, it’s probably a clever way to boost attendances by getting all the youngster’s family members to turn up.
Rovers boss Ray McKinnon made the rather bold move of dropping Ryan McCord from the middle of the park and switching in Ross Matthews, a young man who isn’t much older than the kiddywinks Hoopy had just led off. Matthews had only started twice for Raith before last night’s match, and while run-outs against Dumbarton and Stenhousemuir are fine-and dandy, the concern was that he’d be utterly bossed by his direct opponent, Celtic and Scotland captain Scott Brown.
Hearteningly however, he started well. An interception here, a tentative sideways pass there, were followed by tackles and forward runs as Matthews grew into the game. Positioned plum-centre in Rovers midfield five, both he and his colleagues looked reasonably comfortable dealing with Celtic’s forward forays. That changed on the half-hour mark when Commons put the home side ahead. But a few moments later, Matthews decided he’d start to stamp his authority, both metaphorically on the game and literally on Scott Brown.
He caught Brown late with around ten minutes of the half remaining, but seemingly emboldened by the fact he was only spoken to by referee John McKendrick, rather than shown a card, he decided to continue assaulting Brown for the rest of the game; crashing, banging and walloping into him with wonderful exuberance, until McKendrick eventually intervened and booked Bonecrusher Matthews after 74 minutes. It was the type of thing Brown used to be known for before he became this lamentable, sad version of himself: a snarling, bemused bystander, who allows himself to be kicked all over the park by a teenager, who probably only weighs about ten stone while he carries his Mum’s shopping into the house.
Celtic eventually progressed by two goals to nil, but Matthews performance was full of promise, brio and derring-do. Most pleasingly though, Scott Brown will wake up this morning, bruised like a cheap, out of date peach.
Craig Cairns (@craigcairns001)
Tommy Wright’s face frowned with indifference when asked post-match about his side perhaps not receiving the media attention they deserve. “It doesn’t bother me” was his response. The same response he gave when asked pre-match about Rangers being classed as favourites.
It clearly didn’t bother him and neither should it have. Both myself and Tony Terrace predicted that Rangers’ high defensive line, with two extremely attacking full-backs, would play into St Johnstone’s hands – mainly due to the presence of Michael O’Halloran in their line-up. The third and killer goal exemplified this when the former Scotland under-21 international raced onto Steve MacLean’s high through ball to make it 3-0 shortly after half-time. The first goal, and another chance that MacLean should have converted, also displayed O’Halloran’s effectiveness with acres of space to run into.
Wright also outsmarted his opposite number at set-pieces. He knew that Rangers would expect them to aim their corners towards the six yard box and piled all but one of their attacking players in there, leaving Simon Lappin in about thirty yards of space at the edge of the box. Lappin said afterwards that he had failed to convert any of these in practice but, when it came to the crunch, he couldn’t have connected with the ball any sweeter.
Finally, Wright effectively nullified the threat of what is arguably Rangers’ most threatening attacker James Tavernier. Picking a tactic straight out of ex-Valencia manager Unai Emery’s playbook, Wright deployed two defensive players on the left, and kept the marauding full-back quiet until his goal.
Warburton was a little disingenuous in his own post-match interview, claiming that St Johnstone had “sat in” against them. Yeah Mark, but that was after they had attacked you for 46 minutes and scored three goals. Wright completely outsmarted Warburton on the night and it was glorious to witness.
Duncan McKay (@DuncMcKay)
Rightly, my highlight of the midweek action should be Alan Stubbs all-conquering heroes dumping the Melchester Rovers of Scottish football out of the most prestigious cup competition that isn’t sponsored in Scotland. And whilst the ‘Zing King’s’ goal and Dominque Malonga’s mazy finish were glorious, my highlight of the week was much more basic that than.
Apologies for the indulgence, but listeners of the show will know I managed to royally fuck-up my foot (technical medical term) seven weeks ago. Since then, I’ve been housebound, a situation that would normally suit a lazy creature such as myself, but in fact it was torture. Seeing tweets during midweek and weekends about people heading off to matches when all you can do is endure Open All Mics and wait for the Serie A game to start broadcasting on BT Sports Extra 7 at 5.15pm.
So last night was a joy for me. I was going back to Easter Road because I could. I was just happy to be at a game. Truthfully, I thought Hibs would be on the end of a trashing.
The joy of live football is the small things you notice: the fact that John McGinn runs like he needs the loo; that Derek McInnes wears a gilet better than any English private school fresher at Edinburgh University (however, he doesn’t make a good window, with my seat so close to the dugout, McInnes blocked my view of the goal); the exceptional movement of the Aberdeen front four; the worryingly small size of Peter Pawlett’s shin guards and the realisation that my shouts as an unused sub from the touchlines in our Saturday morning league are exactly the same as the Premiership’s leading manager (“Fucking head it Andy”).
Live football, how I’ve missed you.
John Callan (@JohnLCallan)
Early League Cup rounds are often little more than box-ticking exercises, with the bigger clubs steamrollering their way through inferior opposition with varying degrees of efficiency. It proved as much on Tuesday night, with an impressive victory for Morton punctuating a full clean sweep for the seeded sides.
Some took care of their early-season admin with greater flourish than others, most notably with Ross County continuing their galloping early-season form by swatting seven past Falkirk. Their Highland neighbours Inverness were somewhat less emphatic in dispatching their own Championship opposition – but got the job done comfortably enough anyway. Something neatly encapsulated in their first goal.
Miles Storey’s enjoyed a sprightly start to his career at the Caley Jags, and he was alert to capitalise on Morgyn Neill’s careless header back to his own keeper. Once presented with an open goal though, he had the chance to finish with an air of superiority, like dispatching your cack-handed pal at pool by slamming the black home, or giving your nephew such a brutal and dispiriting lesson in Mouse Trap that the wee dafty can’t concentrate on his three times table the next day. With the lead-footed panic of a man who’d been in Scottish football far longer than 192 minutes though, Storey somehow contrived to tread on the ball before quickly prodding it home in the hope no-one had noticed. No wonder he didn’t celebrate; that could’ve got hella embarassing.
Craig Anderson (@craig_killie)
I’m a sucker for a training ground set piece routine. There’s something really impressive about a team spending time practicing and perfecting a move and then having those hours of work pay off during a match. While most goals can be attributed to individual skill, or an opponent’s mistake, these ones point directly to the coaching staff. It is therefore no surprise that a team led by Tommy Wright, perhaps one of the top two managers in the country, delivered a perfect example in Tuesday’s match at Ibrox. Over the last few seasons, Saints have built their reputation on their discipline and organisation – these are are typically defensive strengths, but on Tuesday night these qualities also led to Simon Lappin’s goal from a corner kick routine.
These moves can really be divided into two parts; the deception and the actual execution. The deception part is essentially a confidence trick – you need to convince the opponents that you’re doing one thing, and that is only possible if the players properly sell it. In Scotland, this part is generally the simple part. Set pieces in our game are pretty predictable, with about 95 per cent of them involving either shooting or pumping the ball into the box and hoping for the best. Defenders become accustomed to this and anything out of the ordinary has the ability to catch them by surprise.
Rangers had eight men plus goalkeeper Wes Foderingham back to defend Saints’ corner, but the threat of a short corner dragged two of them out towards the ball. Four Saints attackers took up threatening positions inside the box, and the other six defenders were so occupied by their movement that nobody noticed Simon Lappin standing alone on the edge of the box. The deception was complete. That still left Saints needing to do the hard part – actually turning that training ground work into a goal. The weight and direction of David Wotherspoon’s corner kick was perfect, allowing Lappin to stride on to the ball on the edge of the box. Lappin’s technique has always been one of his strong points, and it didn’t let him down on Tuesday night as he stroked a wonderful left-footed drive past Foderingham and into the far corner of the goal to put his side 2-0 up.
That goal in itself might have been enough to secure my nomination for the moment of the week, but the thing which absolutely sealed it was the contribution of referee Kevin Clancy. It’s one thing for a move to fool the opposition team, but it’s rare to see the referee also completely caught out by it. Players are often accused of ball-watching, but Clancy was doing the complete opposite as Wotherspoon struck the corner. The ref was so busy watching the action in the penalty area, that he too was oblivious to Simon Lappin standing in the sort of space usually reserved for that smelly fan at Parkhead. He didn’t realise what was going on until the ball was rolling past his heels, at which point he performed the trademark “trying to get out of the way” dance, and fortunately left just enough space for Lappin to get his strike away. Textbook refereeing.
Craig Fowler (@craigfowler86)
Very occasionally, like two or three times a year, I’m in the company of another person or persons when the subject of Football Manager comes up. When this happens I get a pang of regret that I am now as much a stranger to this game as I am to uber-geek favourites like World of Warcraft. There used to be a time when I, like any good football addict, used to spend days glued to the computer screen, trying out different tactical approaches, scouring Europe for the hottest prospects, and refusing to turn the machine off until my winning streak had come to an end – which would inevitably end with me losing a game and then refusing to turn the machine off until I’d won again. Some would see this as time wasted, but I’m proud of my past accomplishments. I mean, winning three league titles and four domestic cups over a seven-year stretch with Hearts in virtual reality is, sadly, the closest I’m ever going to get.
I’m also proud of the fact that my present-day life is consumed with productivity, whether it’s making myself a better journalist through my 40 hours per week at the Scotsman, making myself a better sports writer by covering games for the Scotland on Sunday, or making the world a better place with The Terrace Podcast (don’t laugh), I feel content at the end of each and every day that I’ve done something worthwhile, even if I am busier than a one-armed cabbie with crabs.
One downside is that I don’t get to spend as much time with my girlfriend as I would like, and every time we do get a night off together we like to go all carpe diem by lying together on the couch watching boxsets and movies on Netflix. A rock n’ roll lifestyle it may not be, but these nights make me feel wholly content with life. Unfortunately, they sometimes have a sod’s law habit of clashing with a big football night, with Wednesday evening being one of them. So, while most of the Scottish football populace was watching Tottenham v Arsenal and flicking through Twitter for updates on the Scots League Cup triple-header, I was viewing 2014 Oscar nominated flick Nebraska.
That’s not to say I wasn’t abreast of what was happening, as The Terrace whatsapp group kept me updated with the goings on, specifically at Rugby Park. As the film was finishing, two goals in a matter of minutes put Kilmarnock 2-1 ahead, and with us both working very early this morning we began to get ready for bed. For me personally, this included going to the toilet for a pre-sleep shit. I probably could have waited until the morning, but I wanted the free 10 minutes (I like to take my time) so I could sit glued to my Twitter timeline, in the hope the match could be salvaged.
So it was there, in my Edinburgh flat, with my pants around my ankles, that I started cheering and shouting after learning that Juanma and Sam Nicholson had netted what Football Manager would call a double-salvo to put the magnificent Gorgie Boys in the next round of the cup.
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