Thierry Henry hates Spurs, Man U & Celtic

Confusion reigns, eh.

Emotional confusion reigns.

Celtic are two games away from securing their 40th championship. But their fans are far from satisfied with their team and are probably fizzing at the copious attention being paid to Paul Le Guen’s predicted arrival across the toon.

And the real “excitement” in the top half of the table can be found in the contest between another two equally confused clubs: One which has chucked away first the Championship and maybe yet a historic place in the Champions League and one which has enjoyed massive European success this season but plummed equally historic domestic depths.

With eight games of the season remaining, Hearts, in second place, are six points clear of Rangers in third: With the Jambos massive goal-difference advantage over The Teds, The “battle” for the second Champions League qualifying spot would seem to be all but over.

Okay, we play Hearts at home and the Maroon yins face two more tussles with the hooped horrors but we have to go to Parkhead too: We weren’t as convincing as we could have been at Tynecastle last Sunday so all thoughts of us playing at full potential til final curtain 2005/2006 have been kicked into touch.

Normally this would mean Hearts will do it. In normal footballing circumstances, Hearts would be everyones favourites to finish second. But the Scottish scene is never normal - if Hearts do manage to stay the distance they’ll be the first club since Alex McLeish’s Motherwell, ELEVEN YEARS AGO, to split the Old Firm atom. The first team other than Rangers or The other Lot to finish in the top two since 1994/95.

But then, when celtic collect their 40th championship next week or the week after, it’ll mean it’s now twenty whole years, two complete decades since anyone other than The Glorious Gers or the crappy celts have been crowned top dog of Calcio Caledonia.

So the Jambos have history against them but more than that they have the present day against them and more than that they have probably the worst case of the emotional, psychological, distress afflicting the fans of the current top three clubs: At Parkhead, Tynecastle and Ibrox, we’re all having our present loyalties tested.

Hearts are in crisis. Romanov has sacked yet another manager - his third in less than 18 months. Having won his first ten SPL games in charge, there’s little doubt the sacking of George Burley has cost Hearts the SPL title. Having installed Graham Rix at all, Romanov sucked some wind out his team - the man who made a big mistake in his private life clearly wasn’t meant to make his own choices in his new footballing life: Rix was intended to be so grateful a recipient of ANY football vacancy, never mind one as illustrious as Heart of Midlothian, that he’d let his club owner pick the team.

Hearts dropped points they shouldn’t have. Now he’s sacked Rix, Romanov may well have created one imbalance too many - Hearts, already seeing their 16-point lead over Rangers slashed to six, could implode completely on this week’s sacking. Falkirk haven’t won a home game all season - how many times does a club in that situation finally get it right against a club with so much more money and potential:

The Bairns could well nail the Hearts coffin this weekend but any Jambo who turns on Romanov must surely also feel he wouldn’t have tatsed such heights in the early part of the season without Romanov. The Scottish Cup can still be won - when you’ve only won one major honour in the last forty three years this must give pause. As must the fact Tynecastle’s been almost sold out for every home game this season.

Celtic fans know Gordon Strachan is, at best, their Alex McLeish: He never played for the club but played with distinction against them many a time and so is on the back-foot from the word go. His first competitive game in charge is the worst defeat in the club’s proud European history. He later oversees a cataclysmic Scottish Cup defeat at Clyde. Like McLeish, the League Cup was his first honour at his Old Firm job and the championship will follow - but the failures are already more spectacular than the successes and, amazingly for a manager who has his side twenty three points clear of their greatest rivals, the Celtic crowd under-appreciate his talents.

The charge I hear from both Rangers and Celtic fans is that this season’s SPL has been below-par, a rotten league. GARBAGE! In terms of winning titles, when has the overall quality of competitors ever been anything other than even more of a slagging for those who can’t win it. Winning the league is winning the league - it might not mean the same in terms of excitement or memories each time but it means exactly the same achievement every time: You’re the best.

This, therefore means Rangers are twenty three points away from best. A fucking disgrace. We’re facing yet another exciting finish to our season - could well go down to the last day again - but the fact we’re battling for SECOND PLACE makes any revelling in this “excitemnt” rather unlikely. It’s humiliating. Alex McLeish will be charged with making us hope Celtic win two games - both those against Hearts - that’s unforgivable. But he gave us that qualification from a Champoions League group stage which, for the last thirteen years, I’ve wanted more than I wanted Kirstin Scott Thomas to walk into my bedroom speaking French.

European progress at the price of domestic success? That’s perhaps acceptable if Celtic weren’t so bad, if we finsih second rather than third, if the European success had involved a couple of games when the nighst were light .. in Spring. But, if Dundee or Gretna pull off a big one in the cup and Hibs or Killie make the late surge, it could yet still be that Alex McLeish bought European progress with failure to qualify us for Europe for the fist tme in quarter of a century.

Monsieur Le Guen would perhaps then feel his famous last-minute change of heart coming on.

I’m glad Eck is going but I want him to part on the best of terms. The celtic whitewash of 2003/2004 is wiped out by the great memories he gave us on the last day of two seasons and one Scottish Cup final and another CIS Cup semi. But he needed the history in Europe this season to offset the hell at home: We have to finish second or there’ll be nasty scenes on his leaving. I’m emotionally confused.

Dunfermline at Ibrox this Saturday: We beat them 5-1 last time they were here - dawdle, eh?! But then they lost 8-1 at home to Celtic a few weeks back yet remain the only side to win a league game at Parkhead in 2005/2006. There could well be more angst on the way.
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Well, it’s pretty obvious no-one’s in any way interested in a preview of this week’s exciting battle between third-top and third-bottom of the SPL so we’ll see how many more hits we get for the Gers-Pars “build up” now that I’ve peppered the headline with names designed to hook the four most reactionary fanbases in christendom.

Confused? See the “Pires” rant below.

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Published:
03.23.06 / 8pm
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