The leader of the pack Craig Fowler delves into the weeks action to pick out Scottish fooball’s Winners & Losers.
WINNERS
Steven MacLean (St Johnstone)
Never underestimate how much confidence can affect the performance of a footballer.
St Johnstone fans have recently been suggesting cup final hero MacLean was ‘finished’ following his below par start to the 2015/16 campaign, and things didn’t look like getting any better halfway through Saints’ league match with Motherwell on Saturday. The visitors led by a goal-to-nil thanks in large part to an abject performance from the hosts. Then MacLean found himself on the end of a David Wotherspoon cross, the score was 1-1, and suddenly he and the rest of the side looked reborn. It was a flashback to MacLean at his best. Linking with the midfield superbly and proving himself to be a danger in the penalty box. It was no surprise when he went on to grab the winner.
Following this confidence booster, I wouldn’t be surprised to see both striker and squad hit a run of form . . . *checks fixture list* Celtic away? Ok, nevermind.
Scott Allan (Celtic)
First impressions aren’t everything, as the old cliche would lead you to believe, but making a good one does make life a lot easier for footballers moving to a new club, particularly one with as much hype as Scott Allan.
Celtic fans didn’t learn a whole lot about their team in Saturday’s 3-1 win over Dundee United, considering nine changes were made, though they liked what they saw from a midfielder they’d heard an awful lot about but hadn’t seen much of on a football pitch.
Seeing his new team-mates losing to Malmo will be a tremendous blow since he would have had Champions League aspirations, though the silver lining is that a depressed Celtic support will be dying for something to cling onto that may suggest a brighter future. Allan, if he gets his chance, which the fans will lobby for, can fill such a void.
Andrew Considine (Aberdeen)
Scottish footballers acting in unusual ways is pretty much in our wheelhouse. So Considine’s ‘I Can Boogie’ wedding/stag-do video was always going to make its way onto this site. However, I still felt sorry for the guy that the tape ended up plastered all over the shop by Scotland’s media. There’s no doubt he’s been betrayed by someone close to him for this to wind up online and it’s even worse when you’re constantly reminded of that fact by a couple of thousand travelling Dundonians. It was therefore great to hear he’d blocked out the cacophony of jibes to turn in a star performance in Aberdeen’s 2-0 victory on Saturday. No one will grudge him a boogie after that . . . sorry.
Jamie Reckord (Ross County)
Reckord found himself behind Richard ‘don’t call me Ricky – ok we’ll call you Mr Amy Macdonald instead’ Foster to begin the season after injury forced Reckord to miss the opening game. Thankfully for the English left-back he didn’t have to wait long for the opportunity. Foster was roasted by Osman Sow in the defeat to Hearts before being forced from the match with injury, and on the evidence of County’s trip to Kilmarnock it’ll be some time before he reappears once more. County like to get their goals through attacking on the wide areas and Reckord offers more in that regard than the former Rangers man, which he demonstrated with his fizzed ball across goal for Liam Boyce to divert home in the 4-0 win at Rugby Park.
Former Hearts stars turned League Two managers
Not only did Gary Naysmith and Colin Cameron enjoy wins at the weekend, followed by respectable showings against top flight sides in the League Cup, but both of them turned into five-star performances to help their teams to victory. 36-year-old Naysmith started at left-back in East Fife’s win over Elgin, while Cameron rolled back the years to help cover for the loss of David Banjo (any excuse to write that name) in front of the Berwick back four as they won 3-1 at Stirling. The 42-year-old (!) should be pretty pleased with the way his side have started the season as The Borderers join East Fife and four other teams atop the table with six points from three games. Fans had been suggesting this campaign was win or bust for Cameron as his side greatly underperformed last term. It’s early days but fans have been impressed thus far.
LOSERS
Barry Ferguson (Clyde)
The bookies’ favourites for the League Two title went to Montrose, the team who almost slipped out of the SPFL last season, and easily lost 2-0. I can’t say too much about either side since my knowledge of the players would fit on the back of a fag packet. However, from reading about the match on the various forums it appears Montrose found joy in passing the football and easily dealt with the rough, percentage football tactics of the visiting side. Sound familiar?
Ronny Deila (Celtic)
I like Ronny Deila. I like how his natural reaction is to talk up the Scottish game. I like that he’s a deep thinker and doesn’t just settle for football cliches. And I like that he sets out his team to play passing, attacking football. So my natural reaction is to defend him and hope the swarm of criticism coming his way doesn’t do too much to dampen his reputation through the country and with the Celtic fans. But the more I think about it, the more the criticism becomes justified. Deila’s task as Celtic manager without Rangers in the top flight was to win the domestic treble and qualify for the Champions League group stage. He’s had two shots at the latter (well, three in fact) and one shot at the former, and he hasn’t delivered.
There are parallels to be drawn between the misery of last night’s game and Celtic’s defeat to Inverness CT in the Scottish Cup semi-final, mainly a blatant handball which went against the Hoops. Against ICT it denied them a clear second goal, last night it was an equaliser. In both cases, had they been correctly spotted, their opponents would have been down to 10 men and Celtic would have enjoyed a huge advantage. But it wasn’t a death knell. In the semi-final, Celtic still entered the second half against a team with far inferior resources to them and threw away a 1-0 lead, and last night they were outplayed all across the park.
The differences is, this time, Deila is neither looking to use the controversy as an excuse or even a reason for the defeat. He knows they failed to rise to the occasion and that the blame stops with him, which makes me like him just a little bit more. For his sake, I hope he has a terrific Europa League campaign. It won’t make up for Malmo, but without it serious questions about his abilities will continue to be asked. Even if he does lift the domestic treble.
Gary Locke (Kilmarnock)
There’s been a lot said about Locke and Kilmarnock’s performance in the 4-0 home defeat in Ross County so it’s difficult to add anything else to the discussion – I was tempted to include the County second half XI in the LOSERS section also as they denied the rest of the country a considerable amount of extra LOLZ by taking their foot off the gas.
The one thing I will say in this entry is this: the worst aspect of the defeat was how final it felt. It confirmed, or at least seemed to confirm, the worst fears of the Killie support and the cynicism of his doubters that Locke isn’t up to the job. It was just such a colossal defeat. There seemed no way back. That had to be it. He had top be out by 6pm.
And yet he wasn’t. And since then they’ve played another game and won 4-1, albeit against Berwick Rangers. Football often gives the impression that things are finished, done, over. Then a shot at redemption pokes its head around the corner. Locke’s not out of a job yet . . .
. . . There, how’s that for a positive spin? I mean, Jesus, did you see that lot? I’ve played in five-a-side teams that looked better than Killie.
Mark Durnan (Dundee United)
The United centre back endured a horrible game against the champions on Saturday. How bad was it? Well, he scored a preventable own goal, and that wasn’t his biggest regret of the afternoon.
I really feel for the former Queen of the South prodigy because he’s been dropped into terrible circumstances. It’s a team on the decline and one with an inordinately high number of young players. The best scenario for Durnan coming into the top flight would be to join a squad with an already settled core. He could add to the strength of the side while learning from the more experienced players in the team. Instead he was paired with Coll Donaldson, a centre back younger than he, stationed in front of a new goalkeeper, and entrusted with a veteran’s role.
Donaldson and Durnan are a great centre back pairing for the future. Let’s hope they make it out of the present without too much damage to their confidence and development.
John Hughes (Inverness CT)
Trailing 1-0 to Hamilton on Saturday, Hughes decided to withdraw striker Dani Lopez. Coming on in his place was defensive midfielder Lewis Horner. I’m not of the opinion that throwing on extra strikers in the final minutes of matches is always the best course of action when trailing in games. In fact, I once read that introducing a midfielder for a defender or other midfielder, rather than a striker, will increase your chance of getting a goal. However, I certainly believe you have to have at least one recognised striker on the field at any time, unless you’re Craig Levein and your long term goal is not to manage Scotland any more.
So why did Hughes do this? Why didn’t he turn to youngster Calum Ferguson to replace the tiring Lopez? Sure he’s young, but then so is Horner and Ferguson can, you know, actually play up front. It screamed of a power move from Hughes. He reiterated his desire after the match to sign another striker. Similar to Jose Mourinho taking off John Terry, I think Hughes did something similar to prove a point about his squad. He wants the purse strings loosened.
He could be a winner in the long term if this pays off, but it carried no weight with the fans who were baffled by the switch.
Written by Craig Fowler (@craigfowler86)
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