SPL Fanzone: The supporters have their say

Aberdeen

There was a lot more space in the away end at Inverness on Saturday than on previous visits and it may be that many of the normally large Aberdeen travelling support are content to see the season peter out. The football on show certainly fulfilled the criteria for end-of-season fare.

The game did see two notable appearances. After illness last summer, “veteran” Jamie Langfield marked his return with a clean sheet in his first competitive 90 minutes. At the other end of the age range, 16-year-old Cameron Smith made his full debut. Cameron has been watched with interest and he appears, notwithstanding his age, to be ready for a few more first-team appearances. These final games may be the best chance to “blood” some youngsters.

Al Macleod

www.afc-chat.co.uk

Celtic

As THE Jam sang, “I wish I could be like Tony Watt”. Very impressed with the youngster and let’s hope the praise he’s received, quite deservedly, does not impede his progress as it appears to have done with others.

Lenny set out what appears to me to be our best team with the exception of Sami or Tony. I only wish he’d played a similar line-up in previous games and then I think we would still be looking at a treble.

The game went pretty much the same as previous games except we scored first. Sadly for Stuart McCall, his naïve statement of “we’re happy with third” when second was available looks like returning to bite him. Hopefully he’s as happy with fourth. We have a historic game this week and I expect a few records to be set: Most red cards, most fouls and our last-ever game against our biggest rivals.

Dave Devine

Dunfermline

When Jim Jefferies became manager, he did not know all the Pars players. He was not aware of their strengths and weaknesses. He is now. Saturday’s eight-goal feast summed up our season as forwards battled to cancel out goals lost by an inadequate defence.

A picture is worth a thousand words and the photo of Jefferies, in a Pars fleece, punching the air in sheer delight as his five-man forward line got a deserved equaliser will have endeared him to the Athletic faithful.

All the experts told us Dunfermline had gone. What they had not factored in was Hibs’ difficulty in fighting on two fronts. It is physically and psychologically draining.

The Pars scarf and pocket calculator will be de rigueur against Aberdeen. Win this one and watch the ensuing panic.

John Lloyd

Dundee United

A FANTASTIC win away to St Johnstone has kept United’s Champions League hopes very much alive. Qualification into this financial mecca is now in our own hands – win our final four games and we qualify.

Focus must firstly be on beating Hearts this Saturday to all but seal our entry into the Europa League. A defeat will bring Hearts right back into the mix and possibly set up a four-way battle for third place.

On a different matter, Fran Sandaza has gone from hero to zero in the eyes of many United fans. He lost the plot getting sent off after lashing out at Sean Dillon and then his former team-mates. He will already have headed back to Spain to make the most of his two-week holiday, sorry, suspension, as per his reputation when at United.

Jamie Kidd

www.dundeeunited-mad.co.uk

Hearts

After the highs of the previous weekend, Hearts put in a lacklustre performance on Saturday, with too many of the team seeming out of sorts. Saying that, it was better that Beattie missed the penalty in this game rather than the semi-final. It was also good to see the return of Templeton and that has to be a positive for the remaining games of the season.

We now go to Tannadice for the early kick-off on Saturday needing to win to realistically keep our hopes alive of European qualification through the league. Given our recent poor record against Dundee United we will have to up our game from last weekend in order to take the three points. Despite the obvious excitement regarding the Scottish Cup final, we have to maintain our focus for the remaining league games so that we go to Hampden on a decent run of form. Saturday would be a good start.

Broxburn Jambo

Inverness CT

The sound of contracts being ripped up could be heard from the Caledonian Stadium after another limp display. There seems to be no urgency, passion, quality or ideas of how football should be played.

All we have heard all season was ‘we can still make top-six’, ‘we can still make 7th’, which will soon be turning to ‘we might escape relegation’. Regardless of changes/injuries, this has to be our poorest season ever. We had a better team when we were relegated and in the First Division. Terry Butcher has now taken us full circle – back to the Brewster era and we don’t see it changing overnight. We certainly have dug a hole for ourselves, a deep one and it won’t be easy to get out of. We are finding it difficult to motivate ourselves for Saturdays and playing football like this will not bring about a change of mind.

Dave Wilson

www.caleythistleonline.com

Kilmarnock

we DIDN’T have much to play for but it was nice to get some decent weather and a 1-0 win from our trip to Edinburgh on Sunday. It has to be said that summer football has real appeal. Better games on better pitches and even the fans seems to be of a fairer demeanour when it is not freezing cold or chucking it down. With hardly any SPL players involved in the big summer international tournaments and us being the most northerly country with a winter season, we should really look into changing when we play and, who knows, maybe television companies would pay a few extra quid for the rights to show the SPL if there are no other meaningful league games on over those months.

Hibs were no great shakes but I can offer them encouragement. They remind me of us in 1997 when we were nearly relegated but still won the Scottish Cup. An omen, perhaps?

Barry Richmond

www.killiefc.com

Motherwell

While much attention has been placed on Motherwell’s chase for a third place in the SPL, fans will have reflected on the tenth anniversary of ‘Black Wednesday’ when John Boyle announced that the club was seeking the appointment of administrators.

On 24 April, 2002, it happened. Lessons were learned and the club has been run on an even keel since. Arrangements are now being made to transfer a sizeable chunk of the club’s shares to the Well Society and the ambition of returning the club to its community is near. Surely this model will be adopted by others in the years ahead?

FirParkCorner.com has launched a special section that looks back to the time when Motherwell was a club in crisis. Happily, fans are now checking their passports in preparation for another European tour!

John Wilson

www.FirParkCorner.com

Rangers

Saturday’s game at Tynecastle was a welcome distraction from the farcical ineptitude engineered by Duff & Phelps, so full credit to Rangers for a three-goal win at a traditionally tough away venue. However, the SFA’s outrageous punishment cannot go unremarked. Eight other Scottish clubs have previously entered administration: in five instances no punishment was administered and precisely none had a transfer embargo placed on them. If you wanted to invent a punishment to deter buyers and hasten liquidation, a transfer ban would be it. It gives me no pleasure to accuse the SFA of gross ineptitude and bias but in this case the shoe fits. With the league title already conceded and no European football next season, Rangers fans will never accept clueless bureaucrats kicking us when we’re already down. This will not stand.

Stephen Smith

www.theRST.co.uk

St Johnstone

That was a bit worrying. But, stepping back from the disappointment of the Dundee United defeat, I’ll try not to get too disheartened. We were missing four midfielders who could easily be described as “first choice” – with two of those stepping in just back from injury, another making his debut and another, unfortunately, not up to the required standard.

There are no easy games left this season. It’s going to be a massive struggle, but we have to have belief. We are where we are on merit and hopefully the players will remember that when we travel to Fir Park.

I’d suggest that four points from our games against Hearts and Motherwell might just about be enough to see us into a Europa League slot. Those are both away ties, and it will take two incredible performances to realise that points haul. We can but hope.

Jamie Beatson

www.weareperth.co.uk

St Mirren

Manchester United seem to like following in our footsteps. First they hire Alex Ferguson then they decide to repeatedly throw away a lead at home to draw 4-4 in a match they should have won. Only we could manage to score four goals at home against the team bottom of the league and still fail to pick up three points. We found ourselves in great positions against Dunfermline on Saturday yet seemed far too willing to help them out in their battle to beat the drop.

On the plus side. Steven Thompson has been in terrific form in the last few weeks and seems to be enjoying playing for his boyhood club. His third goal was a peach and it’s a real shame he wasn’t able to mark his hat-trick with three points. But, if he keeps playing like that, we may just be celebrating seventh place in a few weeks’ time.

Stuart Gillespie