THE GREAT MAN is 82 now, so, it would be asking too-much for him to put on his boots and venture onto the Auchenhowie training pitch to show them how to do it, but, on the evidence of that opening half hour at the Theatre of Pies on Wednesday night, when they invited the boy band, brilliantly dubbed 'Hun Direction', to reform and save the jerseys, the Rangers Board didn't go far enough back. They should have invited John Greig back too, since, on the evidence of that opening half hour, the cry around Ibrox is still “No Defenders.”
There is a big difference in ther basic DNA of our two dominant clubs. A Best Celtic XI – of the first 100 years of that club – one player from each decade - would, after you handed the goalkeeper's jersey to John Thomson, be top-heavy with attackers: Patsy Gallacher, Jimmy McGrory, Jimmy Delaney, Charlie Tully, Jinky, Kenny – to name but five. The rival Rangers XI would, after Jerry Dawson grabbed the yellow jersey, be mostly defenders: Tom Vallance, Davie Meiklejohn, Jimmy Simpson, Jock Shaw, Willie Woodburn etc.
Up in that great Ludge in the sky, the ghosts of the Iron Curtain Defence must be cringing in embarrassment as some of the inept defending we saw on Wednesday night, and for much of this season. Rangers' power was built on defensive solidarity and if I was Barry Ferguson I would be getting one or two of my old mates – Richard Gough, Terry Butcher etc. up to give the current lot lessons in basic defending.
On the basis of the last hour of that game: are we finding out that James Tavernier is actually the new George Young? “Big Corky” spent the bulk of his Rangers' career at right back, before, in the wake of Woodburn's “sine die” suspension, he switched to centre-half. Now, Tavernier has always looked better going forward than defending, but, he did bring a bit more solidarity on Wednesday. A central pairing of Tavernier and John Souttar just might work for the rest of the season.
I might be being unfair to him here, but, if Barry Ferguson is to stabilise the ship, get the gap to Celtic down to single digits and somehow – against all current expectations - engineer a run deep into the knock-out phase of the Europa League, then I see his role as being in Man Management – getting across to a basically non-Scottish squad, what it means to wear that kit – while Neil McCann and Billy Dodds do the more-technical stuff on ther training park. There is the makings of a team in there, but little time left this season to bring it out.
Watching that game live, on Sky, then reviewing the other Wednesday night games later of Sportscene further convinced me, while watching two good teams – Manchester City v Real Madrid say, can be boring in the extreme: pass, pass, pass, on repeat; for true entertainment you need the SPFL – bad teams, giving the ball away, making wrong choices, missing sitters, ye cannae whack it for entertainment – with the added bonus of somewhat bizarre, not to say embarrassing, VAR interventions.
Speaking of embarrassment – what about that choral performance from the Rangers' support at Rugby Park? I know, we in the media have characterised the appointment of “Hun Direction” (sorry, I just love that description and admit, I am using it in part to wind-up a staunch member of 'The Lap-top Loyal', who gets most-upset when I use “Hun” in any piece about Rangers, since he considers it sectartian and cautioned me that I am better than that. - News Flash, I'm not), as a replanting of old Rangers standards.
Well, the travelling fans on Wednesday certainly dug into their back catgalogue of Rangers standards for their choral performance. I know, I joke about my native Ayrshire being “Orange County” and that my old school's song is 'The Sash My Father Wore' – there was a lot of evidence of many of my fellow Academicals supporting Rangers on Wednesday night; there perhaps to cheer-on old boy Doddsie.
As regular readers of these slavverings know, I have little time for badge-kissing foreign imports to Scottish fitba, we have enough of our own second and third-raters to go round, but, there is nothing wrong with small portions of exotic spicing in our game.
But, I would like to see our top clubs giving home-grown talent a stage to perform on, and, on Wednesday night I thought the 17-year-old Hearts prodigy James Wilson took his goal against St Mirren well. He is one to watch for the future. I just hope, however, he and whoever is advising him heed the (and there follows a phrase you will not often hear in this context) wise words of Kris Boyd, who, in the preamble to the Rugby Park game, called for exciting young Scottish talent to show patience, spend longer learning ther game in Scotland, before taking the big money on-offer in England.
Since the playing field was skewed too-far in the direction of England, because of the money even their “diddy teams” have to splash, there have been too-many promising boys who took the high road South before they were ready for it, only to crash and burn and fail to deliver on their promise.
Speaking of the Hearts v St Mirren game, Michael Stewart again showed why he is one of the top on-screen analysts, with his take on that flashed then rescinded Red Card.
“In Rugby Union, that is a straight red card, it is time for Football to take head knocks seriously,” he opined. Well said Michael.
No comments:
Post a Comment