Walter Smith is right about future of the game

[ian1964 10,440]

WALTER SMITH was wrong when he said that Scottish football is dying.

 

You'd get a death certificate for it right now. Still, I know what he meant. There's more pain to come before we hit the bottom.

 

By that time the national side will be seeded in pot four for major competitions and the Old Firm,

 

denied automatic entry to the Champions League, won't be good enough to negotiate the qualifiers.

 

That, my friends, is what awaits us. We'll be rubbing shoulder with San Marino and the Faroes before long.

 

Let's take the Old Firm first before we get to the real dross. I wasn't shocked by Rangers' drubbing against Unirea, just saddened.

 

The speed of the Ibrox club's demise has been frightening. From Gascoigne, Laudrup and De Boer to the abject poverty of the current side seems to have taken five minutes.

 

Smith will have to carry the can for this latest embarrassment and that's the way it should be in this business. The Rangers gaffer knew what he was getting in to when he answered Sir David Murray's distress call, although God only knows why he retraced his steps.

 

Those now demanding his removal are entitled to be heard, they pay good money into the club, but they should think this through.

 

Without Smith's contribution recently there's every chance Rangers would have gone bust. As the London bankers continue to call the shots on Edmiston Drive ask yourself this. Where would the club be without the �£10million guarantee from this season's Champions League or the money banked from the run to the UEFA Cup Final? In the grubber, that's where.

 

Along the way he's lost what little quality he had as Alan Hutton, Carlos Cuellar and Barry Ferguson, left, were all punted to help prop up the balance sheet, yet somehow he outwitted Gordon Strachan to land the title last summer.

 

Smith will take no consolation from Celtic's woeful Europa League campaign. He and Tony Mowbray are both in the same place.

 

By Friday it was Mowbray's turn to feel the heat after Hamburg exposed the deficiencies in his team.

 

Mowbray must be asking himself why he left West Brom for a set-up that's in freefall.

 

Still, the humbling of the big two has given the anti-Old Firm brigade a good giggle. At this rate we'll have to listen to the sniggering for some time.

 

One scribe wrote that he wouldn't open the curtains if the Old Firm were playing in his back garden and he's probably right but if the Glasgow pair are really so bad where does that leave the other SPL clubs?

 

You know who I mean, the clubs who organise an open-top bus parade every time they beat the Old Firm but who can't mount a real challenge for five minutes.

 

Much was made of Unirea's modest resources, coming from a town of just 17,000 people, which begs one obvious question.

 

If a two-bob outfit can finish ahead of Steaua Bucharest to win the title in Romania why can't anyone in the SPL give the Old Firm a run for their money?

 

They're on their knees for heaven's sake. Is there any chance these super young SPL coaches we keep hearing about might put the frighteners up the Glasgow boys?

 

A good look in the mirror wouldn't do the rest of the SPL any harm. It's 25 years since the championship flag flew outside of Glasgow. Pathetic.

 

Let's not forget the humiliations of earlier this season. Aberdeen battered by Sigma Olomouc, Falkirk pumped in Liechtenstein and Motherwell losing at home to the Llanelli male voice choir.

 

What little is left of our co-efficient ranking was earned by the Old Firm. Both clubs made it to the UEFA Cup Final, both reached the last 16 of the Champions League.

 

Meanwhile our other Euro entrants were running up the white flag.

 

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/scottish/scottish_sport/565521/Rangers-boss-knows-the-game-in-Scotland-cant-survive-as-it-stands.html

[fraser54 0]

You have made me go to my bed on a downer now !