Ra Peepul Are Happy, But, Should They And We Be?

DOWN HERE, in God's Orange County of Ayrshire, where (allegedly) they still give you a picture of King Billy, on his white horse at the Boyne, to hang above the fireplace in your new cooncil hoose, life is good this morning.

 In East Ayrshire, you allegedly got one of these with the keys to your council house

The sun is shining, the bretheren, brown brogues polished to a mirror finish, are stepping-out briskly to worship at their local watering-hole. And if what the leiges term: “The Natural Order” has not quite been re-established, the "tattie-munchers" were humbled yesterday. They might still lead the SPFL table, but, only on goal difference and the upstanding hordes of Ra Peepul are smiling again. The dark days are behind them, and number 55 can be imagined, just over the horizon.

But, if I was them, or a member of the Celtic Family, I would be very worried as 2018 prepares to cede the stage to 2019. Because, for all their financial muscle and advantage, for all those questionable refereeing divisions, which we are told: “level out over time,” the Bigot Brothers are not running away from the field; season 2018-19 is not yet the usual one or two-horse race.

Kilmarnock, now in the hands of a proper football club manager/coach are but one point off the pace, Aberdeen, for all their inconsistencies, are tucked-in a further two points behind Killie, with the even more-wildly inconsistent Hearts not that far behind.

I have of late become a fan of the American web site fivethirty-eight. Now 538 takes a close statistical look at various sports and political events around the globe. One of their best features is their Global Soccer Club Rankings, a statistics-based system which ranks over 600 clubs in leagues from the SPFL to the Australian, from the Chinese to the Brazilian. It makes sobering reading for the Scottish game.

The data they use goes right back to the birth of league football in the 1880s, it is updated after every game, using their SPI (Soccer Power Index). Right now, for instance, they rank Liverpool as the number one club in the world, with an SPI of 92.9.

The Top Ten in the Global Club Rankings are:

1. Liverpool – 92.9
2. Bayern Munich – 92.3
3. Manchester City – 91.8
4. Barcelona – 91.6
5. PSG – 89.9
6. Juventus – 89.5
7. Ajax – 88.0
8. Real Madrid – 87.6
9. Chelsea – 85.6
10. Atletico Madrid – 85.3

Where you ask are our leading Scottish clubs? Ah! Not such happy reading. The rankings of the 12 SPFL Premiership clubs, of the 628 world clubs ranked are:

82. Celtic – 65.0

185. Rangers - 52.2

292. Aberdeen – 42.8

358. Kilmarnock – 38.8

401. Hibernian – 36.0

445. Livingston – 32.6

455. St Johnstone – 31.3

497. Hearts – 26.8

559. Motherwell – 21.6

600. St Mirren – 14.8

609. Dundee – 12.1

614. Hamilton Academical – 10.7.

These are 538's figures, if we look at the UEFA Club Rankings, which take into account European form, the story is not quite as-dismal. The UEFA Club Rankings and Co-Efficients take into account each club's performances in Europe over the past five seasons. At the moment their top ten reads:

1. Real Madrid – 144.0
2. Bayern Munich – 127.0
3. Barcelona - 127.0
4. Atletico Madrid – 125.0
5. Juventus – 120.0
6. PSG – 101.0
7. Manchester City – 99.0
8. Seville – 99.0
9. FC Porto – 90.0
10. Arsenal – 86.0

The UEFA rankings list no fewer than 450 clubs from the leagues in all 54 UEFA member associations, and the Scottish clubs' rankings are:

  44. Celtic – 31.0

185. Aberdeen – 5.5

205. Rangers – 5.25

221. Hibernian – 4.425

222. St Johnstone – 4.425

223. Hearts – 4.425

224. Inverness CT – 4.425

225. Motherwell – 4.425

These are the only Scottish clubs mentioned in the rankings, since they are the only ones to have tasted European competition in the past five seasons.

What can we learn from these figures? Not a lot to be honest, other than – regardless of whether you try to assess Scottish football in global or merely in European terms – we are shite. This may not be news to the average punter in the stands, but, this information has yet to breach the force field which exists around the sixth-floor corridor of power inside Hampden, where they still have not realised how poor we are, far less sought some new way of changing things to bring about improvement.

Once upon a time, when I was a young man – we actually fancied our chances against the top European clubs. We could go toe-to-toe with them and win. Today, while we are not yet at the stage of being a guaranteed win against such clubs, where once, Scotland expected against them, now: furrit tho' we cannae see, we guess and fear.

Back then, our determination to win could offset our failings in the technical department. The fact the average Scottish defender could not trap a falling bag of cement was not such a handicap. He could offset this by putting the fear of God into these mamby-pamby sand-dancing furriners.

Today, the continental player is every bit as tough as the home-bred Scots while, since the Souness Revolution, we have tended to import third-rate foreign players, rather than trusting our fate to second-rate Scots.

I live in hope, that, perhaps beginning in 2019, we will change tack, start once again favouring ball skills and technical prowess over the ability to run all day, trusting in home-grown youngsters, and, maybe, just maybe – in world football terms, the lion rampant will roar again.

And, if we can clean up our spectating act, from some of the rubbish we saw and heard yesterday at our two big city derby games – so-much the better.

Hae a Guid Ne'erday, when it comes. See you across in 2019.