No one enjoys hearing painful home truths. Least of all the flat earthers who would rather stick their fingers in their ears than acknowledge Scottish football’s obvious imperfections.
Derek Adams learned that the hard way. Manager of Ross County last December, he was tarred and feathered for claiming that the standard of the SPFL was ‘shocking’.
‘I’ve left a team in League Two (Morecambe) that’s miles better than this team,’ he said of his own side.
Necking a bravery pill was never his best move. Criticism of the Scottish game goes down like a bucket of cold sick at the best of times; more so when it comes from a manager who loved Morecambe so much he moved straight back after two wins in 12.
Every time Brian from Bristol — or Derek from Dingwall — starts banging on about his nan’s ability to score goals in Scotland, people get prickly and tribal.
And yet, here we are, at the end of a week when Celtic and Rangers were handed their backsides in Europe, contemplating the possibility that Derek Adams was right.
Rodgers has a poor away record in the Champions League, where Celtic’s mistakes are punished.
Rodgers receives the manager of the month award for his team’s domestic displays in September.
Vaclav Cerny missed an open goal in the early stages of Rangers’ 4-1 defeat by Lyon at Ibrox.
UEFA competitions tell no lies. A welcome Hearts victory against Belarus champions Dinamo Minsk was one of just five wins in 18 games for Scottish teams in the Champions, Europa and Conference Leagues this season.
And, while there’s still time and games to improve a 28-per-cent win rate, the direction of travel should be clear, even to the keyboard warriors desperate to lay the blame entirely at the door of their biggest rivals.
While Scottish football retains a quirky, raw authenticity, that doesn’t translate to a record of solid achievement in Europe.
Celtic might mix it comfortably at home against Slovan Bratislava. Book them on a plane to Spain, Germany or Italy in the Champions League and shipping six or seven goals becomes a damaging habit.
It’s hard to find fault with those calling for Brendan Rodgers to adopt a more pragmatic approach to these games. During his first spell in charge, however, the Parkhead boss switched to a back five against a PSG forward line of Neymar, Mbappe and Cavani. They lost seven that night as well.
Borussia Dortmund’s attack was no match for the most expensive forward line of all time or, for that matter, the Barcelona trio of Messi, Suarez and Neymar which put them to the sword in 2016. Tuesday was actually the first time the Bundesliga side had scored seven goals in a game since they thumped Nuremberg in September 2018.
In Scotland, Rodgers’ team are rarely punished for their mistakes. Against the quick, powerful trio of Karim Adeyemi, Serhou Guirassy and Julian Brandt, every misplaced pass was ruthlessly exploited.
Rodgers is hardly the first Celtic manager to endure severe travel sickness in the Champions League.
Martin O’Neill played nine away games, lost eight and drew one. Gordon Strachan played 11, lost 11. Neil Lennon played six, lost five and won one. Rodgers himself has overseen 10, lost eight, won one and drawn one.
The problem is the loss of four of them by six goals or more.
Atalanta are up next and the Northern Irishman is dutybound to stem the flow of blood. Playing the same way against the Europa League holders in Italy would be asking for trouble.
A tribal game, Rangers fans have taken great satisfaction from Celtic’s ineptitude in Germany. Two years since they won in Dortmund en route to a European final in Seville, however, the laughter wore off when their own team conceded four — going on seven — to Lyon at Ibrox.
Before the match, Philippe Clement seemed to be prepping fans for the worst when he warned of the Ligue 1 side occupying a different world financially. So did Dortmund when Rangers thumped them in their own back yard, of course.
Without a structure, style or substance, the Belgian will never bridge the gap. Suggesting that the scoreline was harsh on his team, meanwhile, was an insult to the evidence gathered by the naked eye.
Even so, those who want to lay the blame for Scotland’s plunging coefficient entirely at the door of Rodgers, Clement, or both, are deluding themselves.
While clubs like Larne and Shamrock Rovers battle their way into the group stages of UEFA competitions, Kilmarnock and St Mirren followed the lead of Motherwell, Dundee United and so many others by failing to make it through the qualifiers. Losing to teams with vastly superior budgets is no disgrace.
The failure to narrow the gap by developing a serious strategy for youth development, recruitment and a sustainable player-trading model is entirely on them. At least by securing a data tie-up with Tony Bloom’s Jamestown Analytics, Hearts are taking a step in the right direction.
Lyon paid £17m for the outstanding Malick Fofana last January. Still just 19, the young Belgian forced Clement to hook his captain James Tavernier after an hour. The damage was done by then and, if Celtic want to perfect their player-trading model and win games in Europe, the £11m they spent on Arne Engels has to be the starting point and not the ceiling. If they’ve any sense, they’ll start by sourcing a mobile, physical No 6 eager to secure a stepping stone to the big five leagues.
The clubs who don’t have £100m burning a hole in their bank account could always breed their own. A product of the Lyon youth academy, the outstanding Rayan Cherki has played 120 appearances for the first team at the age of 21.
In Scotland, he’d be sheltered and protected, his path to the first team blocked by big, physical signings from England’s lower leagues and cut-price overseas journeymen.
Asked to develop his game against the part-timers of the Lowland League, he’d leg it to an EPL reserve team as fast as his agent could drive him. In 2010, former First Minister Henry McLeish produced a report which aimed to tackle the decline of Scottish football. And, two years since Rangers graced a European final, it feels like the game is back in an old movie.
SFA chief football officer Andy Gould recently oversaw a report exposing the shocking lack of first-team opportunities for young players in the SPFL Premiership.
If that failed to silence those who think a 16-team league and more TV money is the answer to every problem, a Scotland recall for 41-year-old Craig Gordon and a first cap for 28-year-old Preston defender Liam Lindsay really should. Strip away low-hanging fruit like David Watson, Lennon Miller and Lyall Cameron and the list of bright young things lighting up the Scottish league is alarmingly short.
The SPFL’s PR firm picked a terrible day to announce a record league turnover of £44.3million for the last 12 months. At a time when the national game is raking in more revenue than before, an aggregate thrashing of 11-2 for the two biggest clubs makes it feel more threadbare and bereft than ever.
