A lighter shade of sh*te (them … 1 GERS … 0)

To be honest, I’m not really angry at McLeish for this one. All that wandering preamble there was doing was explaining what angle I’m coming from. Things have got so bad in our oldest rivalry that, rather than lashing out blindly, I’m suddenly very keen to stabilise and stop the rot through the power of positive thinking. In other words, I’ve actually forgotten what it feels like to taste victory in an OF game and, as a result, now judge our performances within the wholly accepted and expected context of defeat. Winning is not an option so let’s see how this particular loss compares to all the others…

The 2002/203 League Cup final is the last time we triumphed over that mob. Yesterday the only real similarity with that match was the fact we wore red numbers on our backs.

It’s a post-war record seven straight defeats and it’s also seven straight league defeats if we discount the aforementioned CIS Cup final and the Scottish Cup quarter which we also lost to them last season. Give it another spin; yesterday meant we’ve not only lost but failed to score a SINGLE goal in our last FIVE visits to Paranoia Palace: HAVEN’T SCORED A GOAL IN FIVE GAMES!! Jeeze! - we only scored ONCE against them ALL of last season. Basically, things are so bad that a 1-0 defeat to the last team on earth we wan to lose to actually ened up looking like a positive. Don’t get me wrong - it WASN’T - but it looked like one.

This is why there was an unspoken acceptance, a tacit approval of McLeish’s tactics yesterday. Peter Lovenkrands on the bench - a decision we almost cheered. Ricksen being pushed into the midfield for Alan Hutton to take over at right back - a move only Fernando Ricksen would have argued with. Stephen Hughes out the starting line up - afraid that was widely applauded too, Stephen. Similairly, the desire for no chances to be taken also saw us conveniently foregtting how Craig Moore has shafted us in recent months - we needed Oz’s resilient beligerence alongside Boumsong - Zurab and Marvin Andrews were just too risky. Novo was nominally on his own up front but, in reality, he was as likely to get forward as Arveladze or Prso - all three strikers had a mandate to bolster the midfield first, latch onto a through ball second.

In short, we were playing for a draw. In even shorter, most Gers fans would have taken a point. Shameful to admit, yes, but let’s face fatcs: The downside of a long winning run in Old Firm games is that when it stops, the team who’ve suddenly stopped the rot garners a disproportionate amount of confidence for finally achieveing something like the right to pick up their wages. I cite the example of the Celic team who, going into the midweek derby of 19th November 1997 had failed to win any of their last nine league meetings with Walter Smith’s Rangers. The Teds went a goal up through Marco Negri and looked to have condemned Celtic to a third straight league defeat and their second Old Firm loss of the season when Alan Stubbs headed home a last minuet corner.

This result meant Celtic still hadn’t won any of their last TEN league derbies. It was achieved against a Rangers side missing Laudrup and, after he attempted to hook Morten Wieghosrt on the hour mark, and the jaw , Paul Gascoigne (Just as Celtic were without Sutton and even Larsson yesterday). But these details were submerged by the fact Celtic had somehow managed to buck the trend. As minimal as it was, they’d had the last laugh on Rangers for the first time in yonks. It was their first league goal at home in a derby in five attempts. In fact, taking into account their time at Hampden, it was their first league goal against Rangers at parkhead for four years. In footbal, records you should be ashamed of are quickly turned into a positoive energy when you manage to end them - Wim Jansen’s side took that teaspoonful of self-respect and made it last the the whole season: They won the next derby, also at parkhead, by 2 goals to nil, and went on to pip us at the post for the title - their first in ten years..

We deserved a draw yesterday? nah - we didn’t GET a draw so we don’t “deserve” one. But had Alex Rae hooked in that late effort from an acute but do-able angle then the McLeish masterplan of minimalist attacks and backs-to-the-wall defending would have succeeded. Had Peter Lovenkrands actually covered back and picked up Thopmpson when he gathered the ball twenty yards from our goal and enjoyed a three course meal, coffe and cigar before picking his spot with his trademark long-ranger (EVERYONE KNOW HE CAN HIT THEM, PETER!) then we’d have come away with the goalless draw which there’d be no cheeirng about, but plenty of secret relief. That relief would have snowballed in the weeks leading up to our next derby. There’d be a feeling that something had shifted - a wee signing or two and a bit more match practise for the new guys would augment the fresh vibe and we’d be real contenders again. As it is, Aberdeen are second in the SPL.

Eck’s tactics were justified - in fact it was the same tactics which brought us never-ending victories at parkhead in the nineties - but maybe he’s actually worth more criticism because it’s his personnell which decided the tactics, the players HE picked which failed to execute those tactics to the last vital letter. Or is it the financial situation which is tying his hands? If nothing else, yesterday showed the massive difference which could be made to Rangers by the addition of a quality midfield playmaker. Mladenovic is unfit and, even when at the top of his game, is apparently more defensive and pragmatic than creative and inspired. For this reason the negotiations to sign Hakan Yakin, a man so creative he managed to invent ways to sabotage super opportunities at both PSG and VfB Stuttgart, are suddenly given new import. Problem for me is I always remeber Yakin’s superb Champions League performances for Basle with him as a deep-lying centre-forward. Still, maybe he can give us what Ronnie De Boer did but I suspect, like Ronnie The Farmer, it will only be when the Swiss international can be bothered.

Perhaps a creative force from behind the strikers would let our strikers actually, erm, “strike”. In the early part of the game, had either man displayed anything like the first touch they’re paid to have, we’d have gone a goal or two up. Each was played through on goal outside the box but failed to produce the run or control which any run-of-the-mill SPL forward could muster with his eyes closed. In the second half, when Lovenkrands’ introduction to a more solidified formation allowed us a bit more penetration and possession, Novo was woeful and ponderous when taking the ball in the box. Prso may have ben denied by a solid save from Marshall but again, a lack of shooting conviction was the real obstacle.

The defence was more solid than in any game against celtic over the last two years. Juninho ran all over the midfield area but was never allowed to do a Moravcik on his debut. Rarely did the gargantuan Parkhead cavalry pose any problems for our rearguard and suddenly corners and free-kicks were not so much a worry as a canvas on which Jean-Alain Boumsong could display his genious. This guy is a defender and a half. Not only did he shackle Hartson and Camara to the point of inefectiveness but he instigated our fleeting atacks with a series of outrageously confident passes. I won’t be happy til the transfer deadline has passed this week that the big guy is staying. McLeish talked only about the fact a big fee would be required to take him away - not that no fee could take him away - and the rest of the Rangers team is so lightweight that you often wonder why Boumsong’s here at all. “If Alex McLeish is sacked, I’m leaving”? That was too convenient a threat for my liking.

Rae and Lennon? Lenon won the bout but Rae was far from ineffective and both men actually avoided each other for the most part, as they would, playing deeper-lying roles for their midfields. Alex is a yard off the pace when it comes to the hard tackling - he can’t get close enough to do real damage in a clandestine manner - he was reduced to pushes and grabs - but at least he did make a nuisance of himself, didn’t allow them to settle. His creativity on the ball wasn’t enough in the end but it was worth having.

At the end of the day, though, we didn’t score and we didn’t stop them scoring and it’s a bl**dy disgrace of a run. Thompsons’ become like an ugly, celtic version of Albertz with his propensity for meaningful, often long-range goals in these games. But I don’t think McLeish has become a Lou Macari or a Liam Brady just yet - he’s earned himself one more derby anyway.

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Published:
08.30.04 / 11am
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