Scottish Premier League News Archives

According to Forbes.com Manchester United have been valued at $1.8 billion, ahead of the club traditionally known as the richest club in football (Real Madrid, $1.285 billion) and their chief domestic rivals Arsenal ($1.2 billion), Liverpool ($1.05 billion) and Chelsea ($764 million).

Have fun sorting the lists according to different criteria. Here are some highlights:

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The recent debate over whether or not Welsh FA members Cardiff City should be allowed to compete in the UEFA Cup should they win the (English) FA Cup should have at least the one positive side-effect. On and off for several years the debate has raged on as to whether or not Rangers and Celtic should be allowed to play in the English leagues. Each time the question always seems to be placed back on the shelf only to be revisited a year or so later.

But would the removal of the possibility of European football should they join the English leagues put an end to this tiresome saga? Over the years the argument has been that the Old Firm cannot compete in Europe because of the lack of money generated in the Scottish Premier League compared to its English counterpart. If Rangers and Celtic were to play in England however, they too along with Cardiff would surely only have associate memberships with the FA.

If this is the case, then even if the Old Firm were to battle their way in the Premier League and finish in the top 5, or indeed win either cup competition, they also wouldn’t be permitted to enter European competition under the banner of a ‘guest club’, and therefore the entire basis of their argument falls apart.

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In recent seasons, we have witnessed (and continue to witness), slowly but surely, the elegant destruction of what we know as the ‘big’ teams. Spain, Italy, France, England, Scotland, Germany, Holland, Russia, Greece, and Turkey have all fallen to the inevitable rise of the ‘middle’ teams. Let’s review the movers and shakers:

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Kevin Thomson is fit for Rangers’ UEFA Cup tie against Sporting Lisbon. I am so relieved because I thought he might be seriously injured. He took an awful clattering from Celtic’s Georgios Samaras when he deliberately moved his leg to the side so that he could make minimal contact with the Celtic player before throwing himself to the ground.

In my non-expert opinion that incident was as clear a dive as you will ever see. I feel that the injury and the carrying off were simply to divert attention away from what he did.

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I’ll get today’s transfer roundup started by getting your obligatory Berbatov tidbit out of the way first. Juande Ramos has slapped a 31 million GBP price tag on his prized asset. So, if you want to get him, you’ll have to pay an arm and a leg to get him, or, if you’re Roman Abramovich, two fingers.

Now, on to the real stuff.

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Motherwell captain Phil O’Donnell has died after collapsing towards the end of his side’s Scottish Premier League game against Dundee United.

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It’s time to take a trip around Europe once again to see how some of the other leagues in the continent are shaking out as we head towards the new year (you did know that there was football beyond the English Premier League, right?).

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Our European tour starts in France, where Lyon, as is to be expected by now, are standing alone atop the Ligue 1 standings, but aren’t running away with their seventh straight title just yet.

With their upcoming Champions League clash with Rangers in mind, Lyon manager Alain Perrin sat several key players for Saturday’s tie at Caen, and as a result, may have sacrificed three points, as the home side used an early goal to pick up a 1-0 victory.

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So we have another stupid suggestion by another Scottish team, and again we have the same stupid outcome.

This time Rangers asked if they could postpone their game with SPL minnows Gretna so that they could fully concentrate on the Champions League game with Lyon in midweek. Surely this shouldn’t be allowed!

This is clearly an unfair advantage in Rangers’ favour, one feels. Especially when you couple it with the fact that Lyon have also this week asked if they would be allowed to postpone their game with Caen so that they could focus on their clash at Ibrox, but no, big round of applause to the French FA who have got the call right and have told them to bugger off. You would think that as Lyon are French Champions they would have a better chance of a fixture reprieve but no, the FA stood strong and fair play to them.

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An agreement in principle has been made between Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to take part in three series of “Celtic Cup” tournaments. While an agreement was signed on Monday to stage the tournament in a league format, England have not ruled themselves completely out yet.

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In the aftermath of yet another failed qualifying campaign, Scotland can at least take great heart in their gutsy and impressive performances over the past 14 months. Those performances have seen an unprecedented rise through the FIFA Rankings to the all-time high of 13th place. Putting that into perspective, Scotland are now ranked higher than the USA, a country with almost 60 times the population, and Greece, the current European champions.

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England’s failure in the 2006 World Cup, unsurprisingly on penalties, brought about that familiar disappointment and the usual inquests from the media and fans alike. The melancholic failures since 1966 were all the more painful considering the consensus that the country possessed a pool of talent with the best chance to win the Jules Rimet trophy in a long, long time.

The inquests began, why was Walcott taken instead of Defoe? Is the perceived, paradoxical issue of foreigners in the Premiership contributing to it? Can Lampard and Gerrard function together? Why doesn’t the former repeat his club form for country? Why don’t the players gel together? They ran to those a little more subliminal, does the nation have a losing mentality where sport is concerned (even bearing in mind the rugby team’s success in 2003 and a year after that World Cup)? The final, personal one is why did the media have to hound Luiz Felipe Scolari causing him to reverse his decision to take the job on after that tournament in Germany?

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It was announced this week that the Scottish FA and the Scottish Premier League had come to an agreement with the managers of Celtic and Rangers to postpone their matches with Falkirk and St. Mirren respectively on the weekend of 10th November, all due to the national side’s crunch match with world champions Italy a week later.

Scotland boss Alex McLeish draws a lot of his players from the Old Firm clubs, and requested the week rest for them as to give the Scottish side a better-than-decent chance against the Italians. Frankly I’m a little concerned about this arrangement.

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The season may only be four games old but already I can see Rangers and Celtic running away with it once again. Total domination seems likely after Rangers hit seven against Falkirk who managed just two in reply. That was followed up by Celtic hitting Hearts for five the following weekend, this time with no response from a lackluster Gorgie side who look a shadow of their side of two years ago.

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