It wasn’t a happy weekend for any referees in Scotland who got into the beautiful game in search of praise and backslapping. Granted, if they did that, it probably wasn’t a very happy childhood for them either.
John Hughes said that Andrew Dallas “wasn’t ready” to be officiating at Scottish Premiership level, which does rather beg the question of what Yogi thinks is to be done with him. Punt him out on loan to the Maltese championship for a season and hope it’s the making of him? I would say punt them out to the juniors but I think their quota of refs has already been filled by SAS troops getting themselves into the right mindset for an eventual invasion of Syria.
Meanwhile, Robbie Neilson was showing why he’s Craig Levein’s anointed one by laying into the ref and suggesting that he had powers of premonition over a poor Willie Collum performance in his side’s defeat to Hamilton Accies. Granted, in that case we’re all psychic enough to qualify for our own daytime cable TV chat shows.
Robbie said that his side had practised playing with 10 men in advance because of the refereeing team on duty… and because of “the environment” they were coming into. Fair enough. Always best to plan in advance for one of your starting XI and all three subs taking a Buckfast bottle in the kisser on a jaunt to deepest Lanarkshire.
As if refs hadn’t had enough stick, Mark Warburton then waded in too. Because he was angry over a decision going against Rangers? No, more gallingly for the officials, because he could afford to be magnanimous enough in victory to say that opponents Queen of the South shouldn’t have been reduced to 10 men.
Refs are used to people claiming that they’re Rangers fans. In fact, I think it’s probably just because they seem to share a song. No one likes us, we don’t care.
It’s not just refs who were in the firing line over the weekend though. The pressure was turned up another couple of notches on Jackie McNamara at Dundee United and Gary Locke at Kilmarnock. Both clubs continued their abject starts to the season with defeats. Jackie Mac has implored United fans to judge him on his ‘full record’ as United boss. The Arabs are in full mixing-decks mode though and made sure that record has been scratched to f*** since the moment word of his commission on player sales came to light.
Gary Locke continues to cement his reputation as the most consistent SPL manager around. Two clubs, two seasons, two inevitable relegations.
Turning attentions down South, English football continues to thrash around wildly in football’s swimming pool; drunk on money and attempting to show off to Spanish and German football as they relax on the sun loungers. Championship club Sheffield Wednesday – who haven’t been in the Premier League since Simon Donnelly was being shown round their treatment room – decided to bid £10m for Ross McCormack. More crazily, fellow Championship side Fulham decided to turn it down. The debauched Roman Emperor Caligula is remembered for making his horse a senator. English football would have made that horse a senator and then put it on £80k a week.
When there’s such crazy money flying around in the English leagues, it’s important to have a top quality agent to ensure that you make the most of it. So spare a thought for Bafetimbi Gomis. He’s scored in his last 4 Premier League matches but it turned out that he didn’t have a £7m release clause after all… but rather a clause that allows clubs to speak to him at £7m. They could speak to him, arrange terms with him and then Swansea could tell them to p*ss off unless they found another £20m. He’s still at Swansea (though seems happy enough).
Chelsea lost to Palace, in what was a tough game for neutrals. See a smug, arrogant football manager cut down to size? Or hope that Palace would get a shock win?
Speaking of Chelsea, transfer deadline day saw Islam Feruz move back to Scotland on loan to be reunited with his old Celtic youth team at Hibs. It’s easy to sneer at him for having made the move in the first place, but if Dylan McGeouch or Liam Henderson give that a go then they might find his rumoured £20k a week wages being brought up for discussion.
Liverpool hit their first stumble of the season, but it was a pretty big one. Losing 3-0 to a West Ham side shaping up to be so maverick that that they should only be viewed through aviator shades and while wearing a Top Gun cap. It will be interesting to see how Liverpool do this season, given their approach of thinking, “This isn’t working. So let’s a get a different assistant manager to relay Brendan’s b*ll*cks to the players”.
It’s still difficult to work out what to make of Liverpool’s traditional North West rivals, Manchester United. So far, the key difference between van Gaal and Moyes seems to be that journalists are more scared of van Gaal. But that players with Spanish (or Catalan) as a first language aren’t too keen on him (Di Maria, De Gea, Valdes, Pedro – opted for Chelsea instead, Hernandez – told he can go, Herrera – grudgingly and belatedly given a start). The omens are there. United have fallen under the control of the anti-Cruyff.
Still, what do you do if you’re a gruff, bumptious and arrogant manager who senior pros don’t want to play for but you’re in need of a big signing? Simple. Buy a teenager but spend enough on them that it seems like you’ve secured Messi.
And what happens the first time that teenager does step out of line? Get your money on every paper going for “Angry van Gaal declares Martial law”.
