Its been a strange few months and in all honesty, a few things have properly knocked me off my stride. Losing an election sucked but frankly, things are put in perspective very easily, so its onwards and upwards.
So, to football. I'm still travelling the country watching games every weekend and split my time between St Johnstone and Aberdeen mainly. Having a look at my pre-season guide seems that I was pretty much on the money (Pretty much, thanks Hearts, Kevin Rutkiewicz and JP Kissock.)
Ross Forbes has gone off the boil a bit for Motherwell, there is a player in there somewhere though, we just need to find out where he's best used. The Jim Gannon revolution came to an abrupt halt after falling out with everyone, he left and was replaced with former Scotland manager, Craig Brown. Taking on a team that looked games away from dropping like a stone and turning them into European contenders shows just how good a job he has done. A more in depth season review will appear once the fat lady has sung and Rangers win another title, so stay tuned.
The 3rd of March saw a brave new world appear at Hampden as Craig Levein lead out his first Scotland team against a weakened, but still impressive, Czech Republic side. Andy and I went along to sample the North Stand for the first time (Remember the mouthy guy that sits behind you at your local team? The guy who screams about lumping it up the park and hates possession football? The guy that contradicts himself every five or six minutes? The guy that mouths off about your players being 'SHITE', which leaves you with a tidy sum of cash after using his 'SHITE' tips as first goalscorer bets? Thats where they all go on international days and it is an absolute nightmare.) Levein picked a conservative squad, which would have seen the return of fan favourites such as Lee McCulloch bar injury (And infact did see the return of Kris Boyd) as well as a long awaited return by Andy Webster. After an awkward twenty minutes where the fantastic Tomas Rosicky showed his class, Scotland steadily worked their way back into the game. This culminated in a deep Lee Wallace cross being nodded back across goal by Barry Robson and bundled home by Scott Brown.
On the journey back to the city of discovery, my immediate feeling was one of massive relief. Levein had been saying all the right things and generally talking a good game, my worries about him actually being able to follow through with this were perhaps misguided. Levein's squad was one of few surprises outside of Garry Kenneth's call up. Given Levein's background with Dundee United players though, it is far from earth shattering. Returns for competent performers like Barry Robson and Paul Hartley gave the Scotland midfield the solidity it missed under George Burley. Given the performances of several players this season as well, Scotland have a lot of reasons to be confident. Craig Gordon's form for Sunderland has been nothing short of jaw dropping at times, married with regular game time for the White Cafu, Alan Hutton, the play of Graham Dorrans and Charlie Adam in the Championship and the return to fitness of Kevin Thomson, Scott Brown and Andy Webster, there are small sprouts of optimism.
As I said, SPL season review coming soon. Stay tuned and I promise, promise, promise to update more!
G
