Scottish football weekend recap

Nadir Ciftci is sent off after a second yellow for handling the ball. Picture: SNS

1) The supposed curse associated with the manager of the month is got to be a lot of b***ocks, surely? Earning recognition for being good suddenly can’t make you bad, can it? Well, if this weekend is anything to go by, apparently it can. Each and every team that had their gaffers heralded by the SPFL failed to win this weekend, and Robbie Neilson was the only one whose side managed to pick up a point.

In the Premiership this particularly fate befell Inverness CT, and that was despite them opening the scoring with another lovely, Barca-esque move finished by Aaron Doran. Prior to the match I predicted ICT to lose their unbeaten record and it had nothing to do with believing in the award ‘curse’. It stands to reason that any team which overachieves will come back down to earth eventually, and when a team does overachieve it is the manager who earns most of the credit, hence the award. Mystery solved! (Even if it doesn’t quite explain why promotion chasing Ayr, led by League One manager of the month Mark Roberts, were beaten at home by struggling Stranraer.)

2) There are few players who bounce between the sublime and ridiculous as often as Nadir Ciftci. Even before he was rumbled for an ill-advised Diego Maradona impression, Ciftci was taking umbrage with the world without too much provocation during Dundee United’s draw with Hamilton – his first booking, for example, was for being overly annoyed that Darian MacKinnon wouldn’t give him a colly bucky. Had he fluffed a number of good chances or his team were losing heavily then this could have been understandable. In fact they were actually winning at the time of his first booking, thanks to an opportunistic run and finish from the great maverick himself. All of this doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s a glorious talent. It’s just an easy answer as to why nobody else has tried to take him away from Scottish football.

3) Motherwell’s victory at Ross County shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise. The away side have started the season dreadfully, losing four in a row after scraping a narrow victory in the season opener against St Mirren. But injuries played a large part in the malaise and it does appear that the crisis is nearing an end with Stevie Hammell being the only regular starter who missed Saturday’s game.

One player returning was the mercurial Iain Vigurs. The former County midfielder made his old club pay with a stunning free-kick that opened the scoring. The attacking midfielder may never earn the universal backing of the Fir Park support due to his lack of defensive work rate and tendency to play a ‘WTF?’ pass every now and then, but there is little doubt that he’s the club’s best creative source, an opinion reinforced by the severe lack of goals scored by the team prior to Saturday.

4) An hour into the club’s match with Falkirk last month, Rangers looked directionless and highly unlikely to win the Scottish Championship under the guidance of Ally McCoist. Having survived that night they’ve since followed up the victory with a further three league wins, netting 12 goals in the process and looking like they’re beginning to hit full stride (on the park, at least).

The same Raith Rovers who embarrassed them in last season’s Challenge Cup went down meekly at home to their second tier rivals. The hosts started brightly but once Rangers forced themselves in front there was only going to be one winner, and the only slither of a silver lining for the Raith fans was that their side were only beaten by four – although a friend of mine revealed that his post-match watering hole decided to brighten the night of its p***ed off patrons by showing “virtual lapdancing” on the bar’s TV set. Kirkcaldy, ladies and gentleman!

The best goal of the night was, undoubtedly, the lovely looped finish from Nicky Law which brought Rangers their third and killed the match as a contest in the first half.

5) Bugger me! St Mirren have only gone and scored their first league goal of the new campaign. A round of applause everybody! Of course it still didn’t stop them from losing 2-1 to Kilmarnock, their fifth successive defeat to start the league season. I could try and write about this in more depth, but there are only so many ways to describe a team as being not very good at football. Unsurprisingly, the maiden goal was from all of two yards out since the majority of St Mirren’s shots in the 2014/15 campaign have had more in common with Kenny McLean’s ‘row Z’ attempt from the same game.

Time to hand out the weekly awards...

The Fabian Caballero award for best goal goes to Motherwell’s John Sutton. The journeyman striker hit over 20 league goals last campaign but had failed to score so far this term. That is, until he produced this absolute beauty against Ross County. The best compliment I can give this goal is that it actually made me exclaim ‘wow!’ out loud despite only having my cat for company. She was equally impressed.

The James Collins award for worst miss goes to the man who almost replaced the comedic Hibs striker at Easter Road: Hearts striker Osman Sow. The big forward did little more than pass the ball back to Dumbarton keeper Danny Rogers when presented with a gilt-edged chance.

The Ludovic Roy award for best save belongs to Falkirk goalkeeper Jamie MacDonald. He actually conceded to the same player two minutes later, but that doesn’t take the sheen off this terrific one handed denial of Gavin Reilly at the front post.

Be sure to check out check out The Terrace Scottish Football Podcast website - an alternative look at the country’s beautiful game.

Scottish football weekend recap - 5 highlights