ONE thing you can say about Hearts' owner "Mad Vlad" Romanov - life is seldom dull on his watch. His latest jolt to Scottish football's measured lurch into the new season came yesterday afternoon, when he binned Jim Jefferies. Surprise, surprise - no, the surprise with Vlad will come when he no longer surprises us.
I have a certain sympathy for JJ, he has been a good manager of a provincial club; he has kept Hearts clinging to the coat tails of the Old Firm, he encourages good football, but, at the end of the day his team has had a poor 2011 by the standards his boss expects and if he was handicapped to an extent by injuries, under JJ Hearts no more than flirted with a genuine challenge to the Old Firm.
This is the problem with Scottish football as I see it. Celtic and Rangers, with their massive home supports, have a fiscal advantage which now makes it almost inevitable that they will finish first and second in the league. But, there can be little doubt - they have, over recent seasons, paid top dollar for second-rate players and I honestly believe that a good technical coach, able to properly harness the Scots Presbyterian work ethic to sophisticated tactics, COULD mount a serious challenge to the status quo of Old Firm domination.
Mind you, such a coach would perhaps have just three seasons in which to perform this trick, before either the Old Firm or, more likely any one of some 40 English clubs came in and cherry-picked his squad with better financial packages. Something like: first season - mount a season-long league challenge, reach one of the cup finals; season two - split the Old Firm, win one of the cups; season three - win the league.
Somewhere around the January transfer window in season two, the laptoployal would start print the stories linking one or t'other with the challenging side's top two players and, if they were held on to, by the end of the third season or the players entering the final year of their contracts, whichever came first, the pressure to sell to one of the Old Firm or an English predator would all but impossible.
For all that, for the good of Scottish football, we need somebody to rise to the challenge and become the real third force. Vlad just might be the man to fund such a challenge, but nothing in his past behaviour leads me to believe he will put-up, then shut-up and allow his chosen coach/manager to show what he can do.
But, good luck to Paulo Sergio - you'll need it.
THE on-going David Goodwillie saga intrigues me. By all accounts, Goodwillie ought to have been paraded as a Blackburn Rovers by now. (That's not to say this announcement will not be long delayed).
The fact he still hasn't been unveiled at Ewood Park makes me believe he could still end up at Ibrox. He's clearly a Rangers fan; it is equally clear, for all the riches being spread before him in terms of a reported £1 million-per-year pay deal, he's not entirely happy with the thought of moving to Blackburn. And, having visited that town a few times, I cannot say I blame him; nice enough place I suppose, but rows and rows of red brick back-to-backs and the ever-pervading smell of Asian spices would make me long for the open spaces and clear air of Raploch.
One thing this long-drawn-out transfer story has shown is, Craig Whyte has a lot to learn about running a football club. As I have posted before, he's a venture capitalist and thus, by nature more used to buying cheap than splashing-out top dollar. But, if his manager has identified a player as a "must-have" as Ally McCoist apparently has with Goodwillie - then not to back his manager and get him, immediately raises doubts about Whyte.
Does he rate McCoist? Did he even want him as manager? Are manager and owner on the same wave-length as regards how to take Rangers forward? These are interesting times.
Then there is the third man in any Rangers transfer dealings - Gordon Smith. What has been his input to the Goodwillie saga? How is he getting on with Whyte and McCoist?
If, as currently appears likely, Goodwillie does join Blackburn and Rangers are left with egg on their faces after their succession of raised but rejected bids - does the fact Rangers didn't get him become a resignation issue with McCoist? Only time will tell.
By the way, fair play to Stephen Thomson for the way he has played hard ball with Rangers. We have become too-used to the Old Firm raiding the competing Scottish clubs to augment their own failing youth development programmes. Too often the other clubs have simply rolled-over and allowed the young talent they developed go to Glasgow for buttons.
We're a long way from the stupid fees the bigger English clubs pay for potential, but, if Dundee United get what they want for Goodwillie - they'll have struck a blow against the big two.
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