A Week Of Embarrassment Where Brown And McInnes Should Have Just Shut Their Mouths.
It’s not unusual for Scots to be embarrassing themselves all over Europe in August. Thousands cringe as pasty faced, usually fat, men and women, waddle poolside with 5 weans and 2 grand-weans in toe and proceed to be lobsterised, get drunk and think that wearing replica kits 7 days in a row along with socks and sandals plus eating nothing but chips is the height of acceptable behaviour.
Problem is for us football fans our teams in Europe are now more embarrassing than them.
Well, Celtic are embarrassing. The only solvent team in the country getting humiliated by a team that finished 7th in the Dutch League, containing clog makers as well as Rocky and Bullwinkle up front. Motherwell, Hibs and Dundee Utd also went out of Europe but they were playing teams that they weren’t expected to beat.
Motherwell could have the distinction of being the only Scottish team to win games in Europe this season after beating some puffins and penguins in earlier Europa League rounds. Yes, I know Rangers have yet to play but the odds of them finishing bottom of their Champions League group, winless, are very short.
This has lead to some serious introspection within the Scottish game. Loads of ideas being bandied about on how we can improve. For me it’s simple. Since it looks like we are going to be playing qualifiers in June then we have to start the SPL early and introduce a 4 week winter break to compensate for this early start.
Those who want to move the full season to the summer have been sniffin Sunny D. The SPL is just a cigarette paper away from the Eirecom League and moving to summer football would mean even less attraction to any Jonny Foreigner who is deemed average enough to play here.
The other thing is lets start producing better players and stop lauding players as the next big thing when in reality if they had been born in any other country in the world they would be working as labourers not well paid footballers. I’m looking at Scott Brown mainly.
The domestic fare shown live on the idiot box has been poor so far. Motherwell and Celtic at the weekend produced a borefest devoid of any football. And I thought the first 45mins of Hibs v Rangers the week before would have been hard to beat for needles in the eyes pain.
Still, at least the weekend games saw managers get the chance to blame the referees for defeats against Celtic and Rangers. Craig Brown allowed ESPN cameras into the Motherwell dressing room during the game with Celtic. Rumour has it he allowed Red Hot Amateur TV similar access to his bedroom. “It’s easy to give a penalty for the Old Firm with the fans behind that goal” he said of the penalty that gave Celtic victory. He also admitted it was a penalty. Easy indeed.
At Ibrox a man who lives his life under a neon tube in a microwave, Derek McInnes, said of Rangers winning goal: “I thought Alan Maybury was barged to the ground. We just feel a real sense of injustice.”
TV evidence has proved that he is talking a load of head and shoulders. In both incidents the referee called it correctly. The managers should both be looking at the amateurish and sloppy play from their sides instead of implying that the big two in Scotland get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to decisions.
They might find crying wolf could do them more harm in the long run.
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Lord of the Wing can be found at The Celtic Blog
Tha’s fitba fer yer, but.