Off The Ball - Pre-season Update
July 21, 2008
Aye aye all, fit like theday? Today will be Inside Left’s last update for a week or two while we go for a bit of craic agus ceol in Ireland, a wee pre-season tour if you like, before we return for the start of the footballing fun. We just wanted to take this opportunity for a quick catch-up with what’s happening around Scotland and give you a heads up with what’s coming up while we’re gone.
We begin with a rather sore topic for Inside Left, the pre-season friendlies. After Aberdeen’s shocking 4-0 defeat away to Peterhead we had considered giving up football and taking up curling or bowls. Much ribbing from Peterhead fans followed but thankfully they’re all off to sea again on their smelly boats for a few weeks catching fish for my haddock suppers and giving us a bit of piece. Aberdeen play Brechin tonight in what will be another potential banana skin. At the time of writing this update, the Dons are leading 1-0 at halftime. Surely history won’t repeat itself will it? Will it?
Dundee United got back to winning ways, beating Raith Rovers 4-0 at Starks Park. Like some of our other clubs who have been in action over the last few days, United haven’t exactly shone in their games so far, so the win came at just the right time for Craig Levein’s men. Warren Feeney scored three of United’s goal before Noel Hunt rounded off the night, and the Raith keeper, to seal the tie. Next up for Dundee United are Abroath who, in a seamless link to the next paragraph …
… got tanked 3-1 by a Sunderland XI featuring the highly-rated Martyn Waghorn. Bryan Scott scored for the Lichties. Judging by the club photographs, a gala day was had by all despite the result. Thirteen Sunderland fans travelled up for the occasion.
Just down the coast, Dundee lost to Wolves, their first pre-season defeat. After the 0-0 draw against Aberdeen the other week, the Dee’s probably thought their pre-season was going well, but a series of defensive mistakes allowed the Midland club to grab a late winner. Veteran keeper (a euphemism for ‘a player whose had more clubs than Tiger Woods’) Rab Douglas played for the Dee’s, as did new signing Jim Lauchlan who signed a one-year deal right before the kick-off.
Third Division returnees Berwick Rangers entertained Second Division Alloa Athletic, but probably wished they’d hid behind the sofa when the doorbell rang as the visitors ran out 3-0 winners. Steven McKeown, Joe Andrew and Iain Campbell got the goals for the Wasps.
Back in the giddy heights of the SPL, the team which finished third (and therefore officially the best team in Scotland if only the Old Firm would feck off), lost away to Romanian outfit Tescoma Zlin. Terrible name for a football team, so it is, sounds more like a medical condition involving flaky skin and rash that doesn’t respond to antibiotics. Anyway, Motherwell (for it was them) lost 2-1, both Romanian goals coming in a two-minute spell. David Clarkson scored for the Steelmen.
Rangers lost 1-0 to German side Schalke ‘04. Some slack near-post defending allowed Mladen Krstajic to score with a glancing header. Rangers went for a 4-3-3 formation with Miller, Darcheville and Novo up front, but the game was by all accounts pretty poor and should be regarded as a nice run-out for the Gers. Thankfully there where no more injuries to report, as the search for a replacement for Barry Ferguson goes on. David Weir has been appointed team captain while the midfielder recovers. Ferguson is expected to be out for up to four months.
If you’ve got your own gloves and top, get yourself down to Almondvale. Keeper Giordano Vanin has been released from his contract at his own request. The Italian lasted six days at the club. It puts Livingston in a bit of a pickle as they’re not exactly over-furnished in the goalkeeping department. An unnamed Frenchman was used in the defeat to a Celtic XI side on Sunday. He was subsituted for an unnamed Brazillian keeper, but so far no news from the club about a permanent signing.
Two interesting games to get down to see if you can. Barcelona come to Scotland when they play Hibernian at Murrayfield on Thursday and Dundee United at Tannadice on Saturday. The Catalan side travel with a strong squad, including Alexander Hleb, Daniel Alves, Thierry Henry, Samuel Eto’o and Lionel Messi.
Some of the friendly fixtures coming up in the next few weeks include St Johnstone taking on Burnley on Wednesday, Celtic against Cardiff on Thursday before they fly out to Portugal for the Algarve Cup. Aberdeen travel to Holland for a series of games against Dutch opposition, as do Falkirk, who play three games there. Hamilton stay in Blighty as they take part in Hartlepool United’s pre-season Centenary Tournament where they might play Sunderland, if things go their way. Hearts travel to Germany for a 10-day tour of lower-league opposition. Inverness take a break from playing Highland League sides and travel to Denmark for a series of games against teams you and I have never heard of. Kilmarnock and St Mirren cut costs by staying close to home. QPR and Coventry play Killie, while St Mirren take on Morton in the Renfrewshire Cup. The Buddies complete their pre-season with a game away to Darlington.
Three stories for you to follow while we’re gone:
David Healy MBE was caught giving it the auld “I’m a flute player in a Orange band, and here’s my flute” in front of the Celtic fans prior to their game against Fulham at Craven Cottage. It’s a stupid thing to do, especially for a former Rangers player and Northern Ireland international and really he should know better than to do the one thing guaranteed to get the Celtic fans going. The question now is how much attention will be paid to the incident as (a) it was a friendly and (b) the incident did not take place in Glasgow. It’s a similar incident to what Gascoine did a few years ago and similar to Artur Boruc’s crossing himself after an Old Firm game. Both players where disciplined (Gascoine was fined £40,000 while Boruc got a police caution) and Healy should receive some kind of punishment, friendly or not. He’s since apologised, saying
I am supposed to be a role model and I can only apologise. It was one of those incidents that someone said something and I made a silly gesture, which I regret.
Perhaps it’s all a storm in a teacup (afterwards, some of the fans who had been giving him stick sent over programmes for him to sign, according to reports in The Independent), but there’s no place in football for simple-minded sectarianism no matter where, or why, it takes place. Keep an eye on the news to see how this one works itself out. As the incident happened in England, we doubt much will come of it. The Irish Football Association are said to be looking into the incident. To add insult to injury, Celtic lost 3-1.
The Scottish Challenge Cup kicks off on the 26th July. For those who don’t know, the Challenge Cup is a knock-out competition open to all members of the Scottish Football League. Complicated copyright laws prevent us from printing the full fixture list, but you can get the schedule here. Ties of the round are the Angus derby between Arbroath and Forfar and the meeting of the ‘other’ teams in Glasgow, Partick Thistle and Queens Park. Keep an eye out also for Annan Athletic who play First Division Clyde.
The other thing to keep an eye on is the goings on around Highland League whipping-boys Fort William. If you’re a regular reader of Inside Left you’ll know we’ve been following this story for a while now. With the season only a few weeks away (2nd August) we’re still awaiting any dramatic news on progress. It’ll take a while for any improvement to take hold at the Fort, assuming it’s all still going ahead of course: Duncan Shearer has not joined up, as the club cannot pay his wages and salary demands for the first six months. We’re also not sure if the new American players have arrived in town yet. The new players will need some time to settle in, so don’t expect an end to the rugby scores at Claggan Park any time soon.
Lastly, we were hoping to give you a more in-depth look at how we think the First, Second and Third Divisions will work out next season, but we spent so long ironing underpants and socks for our holidays that we just didn’t get around to finishing it. Here are the tables as we see them; the underlying arguments will come later.
| Division One | Division Two | Division Three |
| Dundee St Johnstone Dunfermline Partick Livingston Queen Of The South Ross County Morton Airdrie Utd Clyde |
Raith Alloa Arbroath Peterhead Ayr Brechin Queens Park Stranraer Stirling East Fife |
Cowdenbeath Dumbarton Albion Berwick Montrose Elgin Stenhousemuir East Stirling Forfar Annan Athletic |
Phew, and we were hoping to keep this update short! We’ll be back in time for the start of the season and will be travelling with the Dons to Deventer as they take on Go Ahead Eagles. We’re still hoping to catch a word with Jimmy and the lads before they head back to Aberdeen.
In the meantime, if your team are playing in a friendly, the Challenge Cup or one of the many leagues around the country, go along and watch. Win or lose, enjoy the games and support your team. We will be back on the 2nd August as we continue to bring you all the news and features about the game in Scotland. Until then, mar sin leibh an dràsda!
Hearts ended the season in eighth place last year, their worst finish since they where relegated from the old Scottish Premier league in 1981, so improvement is clearly required. The potential is certainly there - Hearts, together with Motherwell are the only other club in the SPL to have finished second in the league in the last ten years. Two years ago a team that featured Hartley, Gordon, Skacel, Pressley and Bednar romped into second place, nineteen points clear of fourth-placed Hibs. Since then, a lot has happened. Gordon, Pressley and Hartley all left (some say pushed) and though a fourth place finish in season 2006/07 is not bad these days, life at Tynecastle was anything but easy. A revolving door of managers and players, mainly Lithuanian, meant that the club was in a total state of flux and getting a settled team was not easy. Stephen Frail (the sixth manager since the end of the 2005/06 season) took over in a care-taker role and did as well as can be expected given his position was never secure. With the arrival of a new coach, after almost seven months of searching, life at Tynecastle should be returning to normal any time soon. Hungarian Csaba Laszlo is probably the best of the various names to have been associated with the job and should go some way to repairing the damage owner Vladmir Romanov has done to the reputation of the club, providing he can get the results, and providing Romanov will leave Csaba to the job of running first team affairs. Like new England coach Fabio Capello, the new manager has been ringing in the changes: the team reports to the Riccarton training facilities early and has breakfast together before training starts as Csaba rebuilds some of the team unity. The sale of Roman Bednar to West Bromwich Albion (where he was out on loan) for £2.3m will bring some revenue to the club, which presumably will be used to buy a new striker. Super-sub Velicka had scored fourteen before was sold to Viking Stavanger (and then to Rangers) back in February while next top scorers Laryea Kingston and Andrew Driver both scored five in all competitions. Left-back David Obua is the only new signing of the new season so far while Neil McCann and Ibrahim Tall have left. We think the Csaba revolution will take some time to kick in while he gets used to the squad, and Roman and Csaba get used to each other. Like every Hearts season these days, what happens on the pitch is very much determined by what happens off it. Not league winners, better Cup runs should be a target for Csaba and Vladimir will expect better than a fourth round exit in the League Cup. With all the changes going on we think Hearts will do marginally better than last year. Season 2010/11 will be a good one for the Tynecastle side, but for now we predict a 7th place for the Jambos.
In the last four seasons that Caley have played in the top flight, they’ve finished ninth, eighth, seventh and eight again. It tells a story doesn’t it? Caley are one of those mid-table teams that get the results without ever really getting anywhere. They reached sixth place about midway through last following good wins over Hearts and Dundee United, but from the end of February right up to the end of the season Caley got stuck in ninth position. Very much a team that prefers to play at home Caley scored the most goals and won the most of the teams in the bottom six. Their ninth place is probably due to their thirteen defeats away from home - only Gretna had a worse away record. Good news: Inverness scored 51 goals last season, more than the three teams above them in the league and better than Aberdeen and Motherwell. The bad news: apart from Gretna, Inverness also conceded the most goals, a massive sixty-two! Joining for this season is defender Djebi-Zadi (who also had a spell at Ross County) and Ryan Esson, returning back to Scotland after a lengthy spell in England. Manager Craig Brewster also brings in Andy Barrowman from Ross County where he scored twenty-four league goals as he helped the Staggies win promotion back to the First division. A shrewd move, assuming Barrowman can handle life in the SPL, because it looks like Marius Niculae wont be staying at Caley for much longer - expect the Romanian to be gone in the January transfer window. Attacking midfielder Don Cowie (yet another former Ross County player!) was the clubs top-scorer last season. And if things get tight, manager Craig Brewster can still play: he scored in the pre-season friendly against Brora Rangers. We think that Brewster will push the team harder this year and if they can keep the “Goals Against” column nice and low, while scoring at the other end, we think Caley will improve from last year. So, Caley for eighth.
Falkirk start their fourth season in the top flight. Manager John Hughes brings in a lot of defenders this year, suggesting perhaps that he thinks there might be problems there. Jackie McNamara and Lee Bullen join Dermot McCaffrey and Gretna’s Erik Shultz-Eklund in defence giving Falkirk a total of nine first team defenders. Strangely enough however, with only forty-nine goals against, Falkirk conceded the fewest goals of all the teams in the bottom six. Neill McCann joins from Hearts where he played a minor role this season, spending most of it on the injured list but he’ll add experience to a relatively young midfield together with Russell Latap. Scoring wise, Falkirk like to spread it about a bit: not a single player reached double figures last year, but the forty-five goals they scored last season had to come from somewhere. With the exception of Pedro Moutihno, all the clubs scorers from last season are still with the club. Michael Higdon and Carl Finnigan scored fifteen goals between them, while Graham Barret contributed six. With that kind of goal scoring however you’re not going to push the top six and we don’t see Falkirk improving greatly this season. Ninth place for the Bairns.
Kilmarnock and Mount Vesuvius have something in common: both lie dormant for a few years and then suddenly explode. Like we outlined in a 
Ten years after their last appearance in the SPL, the Accies make another return to the top flight. We think they’ll do better this year than they did last time out when they where relegated again straight away. This time though, Hamilton are a team in good form. Runaway winners of the First Division (a very tough league to get out of), with sixty-two goals scored and only twenty-seven conceded, well, that’s a better record than Motherwell last season. Ok, so we’re comparing apples and oranges - the SPL is a much stronger league than the First - but Hamilton where undefeated at home where they scored twenty-nine goals and conceded only three. Richard Offiong scored twenty-one goals last season, the only player to get into double figures. James McCarthy (a player tipped for greatness), Simon Mensing and James McArthur where the other goal scorers. With the addition of Derek Lyle, signed from Dundee, Billie Reid now has plenty of firepower up front. The trick will be keeping the goals out at the other end. Hamilton have a shocking record against the other SPL sides (and especially Celtic, who beat The Accies 8-0, 8-3 and 7-1 in recent years) so it’ll be up to the experienced players in the side to keep the campaign on track. If they can keep that winning mentality from last season going, the Accies will be fine. We think they can, so we’ve got the them in eleventh place.
When considering who to pick for the team to go down, we knew it was going to be one of Hamilton, Kilmarnock or St Mirren. After much debate, we went for St Mirren. Aside from Gretna, St Mirren where the only other team in the league never to get out of the bottom six for the duration of the season: seventh was the highest position reached. For the most part, the Buddies hovered around the ninth and tenth places. The problem is easy: they can’t score. With twenty-six goals, St Mirren had the lowest ‘Goals For’ score in the league - even Gretna scored more. If the Paisley side are to survive this season, they’re going to have to score and stop conceding so many goals. Manager Gus McPherson obviously recognises this problem, bringing in Dennis Wyness from division rivals Inverness Caley Thistle, while Tom Brighton will bring some pace to the front line. Billy Mehmet, top scorer last season with eight goals has committed his future to the club for another three years. Jack Ross strengthens the defence, and Steven Robb gives McPherson another option on the left wing. A good cup run might brighten up what will be a long season, so hopefully they’ll do better than last years sixth-round exit to St Johnstone and the embarrassing defeat to East Fife in the second round of the League Cup. St Mirren move to their new stadium on January 31 but we’re not sure that the stadium will be seeing Premier League football for much longer. For us, St Mirren are the team to go down this year.
When we first started this exercise, we had Rangers coming out on top simply because we had this general perception that Celtic stuttered their way through the season while Rangers just seemed to cruise, apart from that bit at the end. On closer analysis this certainly wasn’t the case. Rangers got off to a better start, sure, and led the table between January and April until they lost the Old Firm derby on the 16th April. From then on, Celtic lead the league right to the end. A goalless draw on the opening day aside, Celtic scored 22 goals in the first five games of the season. Eighty-four goals scored in total last season and only twenty-six conceded demonstrates exactly where Celtic’s strengths lie. The top 2 top scorers in the SPL last year where Celtic players - Scott McDonald and Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink bagged 40 goals between them. Barry Robson scored 12 goals for Dundee United before his move to Glasgow and George Samaras managed 6 goals - he’s now signed on for another year so Celtic certainly have powerful attacking options next year. Strachan has not been too busy so far in the transfer market; perhaps he feels the squad doesn’t need any reinforcements, a feeling he’s underlined by the fact the roster has stayed pretty much the same over the summer months. Celtic fans would probably be hoping for some new signings, especially as their cross-town rivals are pushing out the boat in the last few weeks. Romanian defender Gabrielle Tamas will probably sign this week, but Strachan knows what he’s doing and wont be pushed into making signings he doesn’t feel are required just to keep the fans happy. If we had to identify one weakness, it has to be their reliance on two strikers to get the goals. Rangers may have scored the same number of goals as Celtic, but that was spread over more players. Should either one of McDonald or Hesselink get a long-term injury, Celtic might struggle to score. Despite all of that we’ve got Celtic for the league again - and by a wider margin than last year.
It’s a fact of life in Scotland these days that if Celtic win the league, Rangers will finish second. Conversely, should Rangers win the league, then Celtic will finish second. As we’ve already got Celtic winning the league, the task of picking the team to finish behind them is easy. Walter Smith’s side pushed Celtic hard all the way last season, right up to the final game. Had the fixture congestion not caught up with the Gers, perhaps results might have been different - the two draws against Hibs and Motherwell towards the end of the season where points the team could ill afford to lose, making the subsequent run-in all the harder. Added to that was the distraction, albeit a pleasant one, of a (losing) UEFA Cup final and all the off-field mess that surrounded that. Rangers lost the league on the last day when they went down 2-0 to Aberdeen but still won all the other silverware going - a penalty decider in the League Cup and a hard-fought victory of Division One outfit Queen of the South ensured that Walter Smith had something to show for all the effort. Not altogether a disappointing season by anyone’s standards then, but with Celtic going for four-in-a-row, the pressure will be on this year to make sure that doesn’t happen. Cheekily bringing Kenny Miller (an ex-Celtic and ex-Rangers player) back to Glasgow was a classic move designed to piss Celtic off, but the move has also pissed Rangers fans off - £2m for a striker who scored nine times last season (admittedly playing for Derby) seems excessive, especially as you’ve already got some excellent attacking option up front: Kris Boyd scored 14, while Darchevile, Cousin and Novo all added to the eighty-four goals (the same as Celtic) that Rangers scored last season. The club has also recently signed another striker, Andrius Velicka, from Viking Stavanger. Bringing Christain Daily to the club was also seen as somewhat of a strange move, and David Weir is two-years short of forty and was visibly knackered in the UEFA Cup final. We’re also not sure about Kirk Broadfoot at right-back. Still, Weir brings more experience to an already relatively old defence. Rangers will definitely miss captain Barry Ferguson in the opening four months of the season while he recovers from an ankle injury. In goal they’ve probably got the best Scottish keeper playing in Scotland. Allan McGregor had been linked with a big money move to Spurs, but the back-up to Craig Gordon in the Scotland goal has signed a new deal with Rangers, rumoured to worth up to £5m. Rangers will do well again this year, not because (like Celtic) they’re especially good, but more because they’re so much better than the rest of the league. If they can avoid silly defeats like the ones to Hearts and Dundee United last year and perhaps get a point from Celtic at Parkhead (Rangers lost both Old Firm derby games at Parkhead last season), then a second place finish for Rangers is how we see it ending.
Outside of the Old Firm, there are only three other places for the teams to aspire to this season: third and fourth (both European qualification places this year now that the Intertoto is being canceled) and twelfth. Relegation wont be an issue for the team we have finishing in third spot this year, but consistency will. Aberdeen had a rocky season, spending most of the first half in the bottom half and never getting higher than fourth spot. Accepting for a minute that you wont be taking points of the Old Firm, its from the basement teams that you get your points and, Hearts aside, Aberdeen certainly did that last season, though perhaps with a few too many draws. Good performances against Dundee United this season was offset by not winning a single game against Motherwell, the team that finished above them. Jimmy Calderwood is - like most teams in Scotland, Rangers and Celtic included - working with a small budget and strengthening the squad is always a problem - gone are the days when Aberdeen where a force to be reckoned with, so getting players to head this far north is a challenge. Up front is where the main problem lies for Aberdeen: the Dons where the only team in the top six with a negative goal difference. Fifty goals scored, but fifty-eight conceded. Lee Miller was top scorer with twelve goals, the only out-and-out striker to get on the score sheet. Barry Nicholson and Sonny Aluko, good for eight goals between them have both left and most of the remaining goals came from midfielders and, bizarrely, defenders. Aberdeen’s strikers need to start scoring, providing they get the service from their team mates. Losing Jackie McNamara wasn’t too bad, but Barry Nicholson and his battling midfield performances will be hard to replace. Sammy Stewart and Gary McDonald have been brought in to help Scott Severin in the middle of the park, while Charlie Mulgrew joins from Wolves to help out in defence following the loss of four defenders, including the hugely popular and talented Karim Touzani, who returned to Holland, and Alan Maybury’s decision not to extend his time at Pittodrie. Goalkeeping cover for Jamie Langfield has arrived in the rather large form of Frenchman Betrand Bossu who impressed on his second-half debut against Manchester United. Generally, whenever writing a season preview for Aberdeen, the text “the fans will be expecting to challenge for the title like they did back in the early 80’s” is obligatory, but thankfully not anymore. Expectations for this year are no longer a league win, but rather a good third place finish and good cup runs. With no European games to distract them this year, that’s certainly achievable. So, Aberdeen for third.
In fourth place we’ve got Dundee United. Unlike east-coast rivals Aberdeen, Dundee United never strayed too far from the fourth or third spot, trading positions with Motherwell right up to the final three weeks of the season, when they didn’t win another game. A final day loss to Celtic, coupled with a miracle Aberdeen win over Ranges pushed United into fifth place and a significantly lower share in the end-of-season prize money. Two shameful defeats to Gretna aside, United performed well against the rest of the league and we see that trend continuing. A League Cup Final appearance was also good even though United had a relatively easy passage to Hampden. Craig Levein has strengthened the squad considerable over the summer: Fans favourite Willo Flood is back for another year and Paul Dixon and Scott Robertson join from city rivals Dundee. Noel Hunt was top scorer with thirteen goals, and Barry Robson had scored 11 by the time the club sold him to Celtic for a cool £1.25m. United need to score more goals at Tannadice though. Of the teams in the top six, United scored the fewest at home, a mere 26. Balancing that off is the fact that - Rangers and Celtic aside - United also conceded the fewest at home, 14. The away form wasn’t so good however, with only five wins in nineteen attempts. We mentioned this in our Who Are Ya profile of the club, but United have to hope that “McCurriegate” will pass over soon and without too much trouble as Craig Levein needs to keep his focus on the teams performance on the pitch, rather than his lawyers performance in the upcoming SFA hearings. Dundee United for fourth then.
The question we where asking ourselves in the office was whether to pick Motherwell or Hibs for fifth place. In the end we went for Motherwell, though it all depends on two things: Mark McGhee’s staying power and the clubs reaction to their first full season without influential captain Phill O’Donnell. Mark McGhee decided to turn down the Hearts job after much public soul searching and a dramatic flight from the top-of-the-stairs of the plane to Lithuania. In the short-term it’s probably a better decision for Motherwell than it is for McGhee. To be frank, we cant see him staying on for another season once this one is out of the way, especially if Motherwell don’t - or cant - repeat the form that got them into Europe and seven points clear of fourth placed Aberdeen. For Motherwell it will be important to make the best of it while McGhee is still here. Thats not to say that McGhee carries the team: there’s a lot of talent at Motherwell. Paul McQuin takes over from Phill O’Donnell as club captain. The central defender is only 22 but has been with the club for over six years. David Clarkson is another young player whose only ever played at Motherwell and scored 12 goals last season. Ross McCormack seemed destined for a long career with Motherwell, but he’s left for Cardiff, citing as one of the reasons for his departure the fuss around manager Mark McGhee. Relatively early exits from the various Cup competitions (fifth round of the Scottish Cup and the quarter-finals of the League Cup) allowed the team to focus on the league. When ‘Well where knocked out of the Scottish Cup there where sixth. By the time Dundee knocked them out of the League Cup four months later, they where third. A slender +4 goal difference at home suggests that games at Fir Park are tight affairs, while Motherwell are the only club in the top six (again, excluding Celtic and Rangers) who won more games away from home than they lost. They could do with scoring a few more on the road though; goals for 20, goals against 20. Motherwell had a better record against Hibernian than they did against Dundee United, so while we see them beating Hibernian again, we don’t see them repeating the feat against either United or Aberdeen, who never won a game against Motherwell last season (we don’t expect that trend to last). There’s been very little transfer activity in the off-season. Bob Malcolm was the clubs last signing, and that was back in February. A fifth place for Motherwell.
Once you get below fifth place in Scotland, everything just seems to merge together into teams that pack the middle of the league without really threatening the top half. There’s about three teams there that could make sixth - Hearts, Falkirk, Inverness, but we go for Hibernian, simply because Hearts are still getting used to a new manager (and they where awful last year), Falkirk are begging supporters to come to the games (which never augers well) and Inverness, well, you just cant imagine it, can you? Hibernian, like Hearts have a new manager at the helm who is starting his first season in the top flight. Mixu Paateleinen might not have got off to a good start - they’re already out of Europe before the season has even started, and have posted somewhat disappointing pre-season results, but it’ll all come good, we’re sure of that. For one, Hibs have Steven Fletcher. Young Player of the Year, the clubs top scorer with 13 goals last season and, perhaps something that can become a distraction, a transfer target for Real Madrid. If he continues scoring and they can hold on to him past the January transfer window, Hibs should be cruising. Colin Nish Dean Shiels, Merouane Zemmama and Clayton Donaldson all contributed to the goal tally so the goals are coming from a variety of places, which is always a good thing. Captain Rob Jones remains popular with the fans and the whole Leeds transfer thing seems to have been forgotten about. Business as usual in east Edinburgh. There’s only one new name to add to the roster: defender David van Zanten joins from St Mirren. Like most of the teams outside of the top four, the only way to get into Europe is through the Cup competitions. Hibs got to the fifth round of the Scottish Cup and the third round of the League Cup, so we should be expecting better this year. In the end results conspired against Hibernian on the final day of the league season when they where beaten 2-0 by Motherwell, while Aberdeen beat Rangers to drop Hibernian from fifth to sixth place. An overall +4 goal difference last season was mainly built up at home (only Aberdeen won more games at home) which was just as well, as Hibs where the lowest scoring of the top six teams on the road. Perhaps if Hibs can beat Dundee United next year (they drew all their games) and do better against teams they should beat, like St Mirren to who Hibs lost twice in three outings, then a higher place finish is possible. For now though, we put Hibs in sixth place, the same as last year.
Now that the proposed fixture between Scotland and Argentina has been cancelled, the national side will need to find other opposition as the team gets ready for World Cup 2010. Every Scottish football fan knows that Scotland have never gotten beyond the first round of a World Cup. On three occasions, Scotland came very close to qualifying, but on all three occasions, goal difference would prove to be the cause for an early return home, and the shattering of an entire nations dreams.
We’re Dundee United, known either as The Terrors or The Arabs. We started out life back in 1909 as Dundee Hibernian, to cater for the large Irish population that had moved to the city to work in the jute mills on which Dundee depended for it’s wealth. To reflect our heritage, we originally played in green and white, but by the 1920’s we had distanced ourselves from our Irish roots, changed the colours to plain black and white and renamed ourselves Dundee United. We play at Tannadice, which was originally called Clepington Park, and our first game was in 1909 when we played Hibernian. The game ended 1-1.
