Serbia - World Cup 2010 (by Cup of Bovril)

Its been a busy few days in the management world of the SPL .

With Hibs already without a manager, Jim Leishman decided to move back up stairs at Dunfermline and Craig Brewster became the 4 manager to depart Dundee United in mid-contract, this time by "mutual consent" not the sack.

Not to waste anytime Craig Levin was appointed at the Arabs new boss inside 24 hours, jumping out of his job at Raith Rovers where he had no contract. Levin who had a decent record whilst as manager of Hearts but did not fare so well at Leicester.
Levin had spoken to Dunfermline before the weekend but decided that the lure of being sacked in 10 months time by Dundee United much more appealing.
It seems likely that Brewster will now surface again as the new boss at Dunfermline instead.

And today Hibs were able to announce John Collins as their new manager.
JC may never have held a management or coaching role before but that was not a stumbling block in his application. He has all the necessary qualification (he's passed his coaching exams) and has an old head beside him in Tommy Craig.

So where will the next change be?

With Valdas Ivanauskas on sick leave from Hearts, he is the obvious candidate but lets not rule out Paul Le Guen realizing that Rangers aint what David Murray said and saying Au revoir.

On Friday Vladimir Romanov revealed a new technique to help motivate the Hearts players achieve better results.

The owner warned his group of players that if they were to not win against Dunfermline that he will move players on to "Kilmarnock or whatever club will take them".

The game finished 1-1 on Saturday so we now must wait to see if mad Vlad carries out his threat.

After sacking 2 managers last season, people we starting to wondering when Hearts owner Vladimir Romanov would be sacking current head coach Valdas Ivanauskas.
After being knocked out of both European competitions and slipping 8 points behind Celtic in the SPL, it seemed that the coach would soon be leaving Tynecastle.

News yesterday morning came out that Ivanauskas was heading to Lithuania to meet Romanov and it seemed that Hearts would soon be looking for a new coach.

Strangely enough thought it has since been revealed that this was a meeting called by Ivanauskas, to as his boss for sometime off due to ill health from the stress he feels from managing Hearts.
The coach has since been given 2 weeks off to go to a health spa to recover his mental and physical health before returning to Hearts.

We will wait to see if this 2 week break does not become permanent.

Only 1 month after signing a contract to take him through till summer 2010 Paul Sturrock was sacked by Sheffield Wednesday this morning, following their 4-0 humping by Colchester on Wednesday night.

Sturrock who has been manager since 2004 and led them to promotion to the Championship in 04/05 and ensured they stayed there last season.

Unfortunatly after 12 games and only 10 points, Chairman Dave Allen swung his axe and must now search for a replacement who can drag his team out of their current slump.

Hopefully Sturrock will not be out of work for too long, all the best Luggy.

For a club such as Rangers who have a history of having players who like to dish it out, from Graham Roberts through Terry Hurlock to Fernando Ricksen, to name but a few the events at their Murray Park training ground earlier this week are strange.

During a none contact match (yes a football version and not basketball I think) Phil Bardsley tackled Thomas Buffel, not head butt or punch or even elbow but tackled. Well this did not go down well with manager Le Guen who decided to throw the player out of the squad for the trip to Livorno.

After their weekend performance against ICT when his team showed little fight and passion, you would have thought that a training session where tackling is not allowed is not what this bunch need but maybe a bit of head bashing together to see if they want to be playing for Rangers.

Celtic romped 5 points clear of Benfica and FC Copenhagen during an exciting night at Parkhead.

Whilst Man Utd were beating Copenhagen 3-0 to continue their 100% record in Group F no one inside Parkhead or those watching the game at home on TV could have dreamed at the amazing game they were about to be served up.

In the first 2 minutes Celtic made their intent to take the game to the Portuguese when a cross from the right was flicked on by Zurawski where Shaun Maloney met the ball with a flying scissors kick that was expertly stopped by the opposition keeper.
The next 15 minutes there was more to follow as Celtic pressed and stretched Benfica searching for the opening, which sadly failed to appear.

The first half continued with Benfica getting a foothold into the match and they very nearly broke the Celtic rear guard with a long through ball that caught out McManus but luckily ran through to Artur Boruc.

The half time break gave Gordon Strachan the time he needed to refocus his team for the second half and to get them pushing on again as they did in the opening segment of the match.

In 56 minutes the ball came across the path of Kenny Miller to knock into the net to put Celtic in front. The celebrations were able to continue again 10 minutes later when Miller scored his second goal of the night after an amazing break up the park from Celtic which had amazing pace and touch that was finish with a thundering strike.

At 2-0 the points were assured and Pearson put the finish the evening required with a goal from a rebounded Nakamura strike on the 90 minute.
3-0 it finished and this was Celtic’s largest victory in the Champions League against an opponent of some regard.
These two sides will now face each other in two weeks time in Lisbon where Benfica will be playing to continue their involvement in this season’s competition, knowing that anything other than a victory will see them battling Copenhagen for 3rd place.

For Celtic this is a fantastic opportunity for the club at last to progress into the knock out stages for the first ever time and on this performance it is a level where the club really should be.

Rangers shocking start to the season continued on Saturday with a 1-0 defeat at Ibrox to Inverness Caledonian Thistle.

It was ICT’s first ever victory at Ibrox and it was a result that means that Paul Le Guen; he who won 3 French league titles; has now presided over the worst start to a league campaign in 23 years for Rangers.

After 10 games his bumbling side have won 4 collecting only 15 points and, although 3rd on goal difference, are closer on points to the bottom of the SPL than the top.

The optimistic feelings amongst Rangers fans during the summer have seemingly disappeared with the realisation that their league championship challenge has ended so early into the season with Celtic top 10 points ahead of them.
There have been no calls for the removal of Le Guen but there was plenty boos to be heard at the end of Saturday’s game.

With the UEFA cup match against Livorno on Thursday, Rangers are travelling to a country in that they have never won a match and to face a Livorno side in good form so far this season. The next 7 games facing Rangers will see them have to play 2 UEFA and 5 SPL games, the final game on 19th November will send them to Tyncastle to face Hearts.

At the start of the season some people in the Scottish press were heralding Le Guen as the man to revolutionise Rangers and was being talked about as a potential successor to Arsene Wenger at Arsenal (they are both French after all). What do they all think now?

After the highs of the game against France off to Kiev went Scotland.
We came, we saw we conquered.
No hold on, I mean normal service was resumed, we lost.

Yes after hovering up 9 points in 3 games we went to Kiev believing that we would be adding to our points tally. Sadly no one told Ukraine what the script was going to be as they threw everything they had at Scotland and Andriy Shevchenko threw himself repeatedly to the ground.

It was a spirited Scottish performance on the night but they were beaten by a better side at the end of the day. Ukraine looked full of energy and running and forced Scotland into have to try and side back and ride the pressure out.

It could been such a different game when Darren Fletcher had the opportunity to knock a ball across to Kenny Miller who raced unmarked into the opposition box only for the cross to not make it over. If Scotland had gone in front who knows how things may have turned out.
Miller had an amazing opportunity in the second half after Ukraine went in front. The Celtic striker again found himself in the box with no one near him, only to send his free header off target.
And then we had the Shevchenko diving display, when he first got Steven Pressley sent off and then went down like a bear caught in a trap to win a penalty at the death, 8 out of 10 for the Chelsea man.
So we are still on 9 points and now second in the group on goal difference to France but there is no reason to be too down. We are still in the running for qualification and let’s remember its points on the board that counts and having played the same number of games England only have 7 points.

1 point from two European Championship qualifying games have left English fans calling for the head, Steve McClaren after only five games into his reign.

A humorous attempt at a 3-5-2 formation in Zagreb, which was more 5-3-2 with 5 defenders in the side and 3 midfielders who don’t have the likes of France, Argentina or Brazil worrying. Oh and lest we forget, Peter Crouch upfront showing us that he really can’t score against any side with a respectable FIFA ranking.

So where did it all go wrong or right (if you are Scottish or Croatian)?

Well brand Rio had another terrible game apart from the rugby tackle that earned him a booking. The most cultured defender in England was meant to thrive on the freedom the 3-5-2 formation would allow him but again he showed poor awareness and judgement.
John Terry, the new captain continued his amazing record of committing a massive howler every game and his one in this game was impressive. A ball crossed into the box sailed over Terry’s head; as he stood rooted to the ground; to the head of Da Silva, the very player the captain was meant to be marking resulting in the first goal. Terry also showed a complete lack of understanding about his position or role in this new formation was meant to be.
Cashly Cole was another poor performer throughout the game. The English press defended him by saying he is only returning from injury, well if that is the case he should not have played. His touch and distribution were the worst of any English player on display and he frequently passed to players in blue or into areas where no other player was. Like Terry he also did not have his jumping boots on at the first goal.

For the first time in 84 international games, Gary Neville at last found the back of the net but it was his own net he found for his first international goal. It was a comical moment when he side footed the ball purposefully back to Paul Robinson in goal to hoof it up the pitch, only for the ball to bobble over his swinging right boot and into the goal to make it 2-0.

So what now for England? Some fans were chanting for the return of David Beckham, a player discarded by McClaren and can now be found sitting down in Madrid during football games. With no competitive games until an away match in Israel in March next year, we can only wait to see what exciting new formation England can develop to continue this level of entertainment.

Celtic’s injury list has got slightly worse during the international break.

First on Saturday, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink broke down whilst training with the Dutch squad prior to their game against Bulgaria. He had further aggravated the ankle injury that had kept him out of the two previous Celtic games and looks doubtful for the Champion’s League clash against Benfica.

On Monday, Aiden McGeady was rushed to hospital in Dublin after what was described as a freak training injury by Republic of Ireland boss, Steve Staunton.
McGeady was taken away from training with a suspected broken ankle but scans have shown that all he has suffered is a serious strain that will force him out of the next few Celtic games.

And on Tuesday, the ever injured Craig Beattie pulled his hamstring in the reserve game against Rangers; hopefully it is not a repeat of the same hamstring injury that ended Beattie’s season last year.

With two games in 4 days starting with Dundee United on Saturday and then the Benfica clash, Gordon Strachan’s depth of squad looks set to be tested.

3 games into the qualifying campaign Scotland are sitting top of the Group B table on 9 points, 3 points ahead of the second placed French team. This Wednesday’s round of matches see Scotland heading to Kiev to play Ukraine and Andriy Shevchenko, in yet another test to see how far this Scottish team have progressed under Walter Smith.

In what guarantees to be a difficult trip for the Scots they will be hoping to return to Glasgow still leading their group, but to do so they will require at least a point in Kiev with France facing the Faroe Islands in Paris.

So what is the points target to get through to the finals?

For Portugal 04 in qualifying there were 10 groups of 6 teams and we now have for Euro 08, 7 groups.
Scotland is in a group of 7 teams and for the last world cup there were 3 qualifying groups with 7 sides.
The average points total to win the group was 29 points and 25 to finish second.

So the Scots need another 20 points to ensure finishing first from their remaining 9 games, sounds easy but 5 of these games are away from home starting this Wednesday in Kiev. Fortunately they have not lost in 5 away matches since March 26th 2005 at the San Siro in Milan and the last 3 have been won.

So fingers crossed and at 7.45pm on Wednesday we can see how many more points we are still looking for.

After 40 games un-defeated in qualification mode, France was finally defeated on Saturday at Hampden Park, 1-0 by Scotland.

The last defeat France had occurred was way back on 5th June 1999 in Moscow whilst facing Russia in a qualifying game for Euro 2000. A spirited performance from Scotland, which was back to the walls in the first half, when they were able to let France throw everything they had at them and let the frustration grow.

The first half was very much one sided apart from the one Scottish corner that was met by the head of Gary Caldwell and sent into the arms of Coupet in the French goal.
A huge roar from the Scottish support met the half time whistle, more out of relief than anything else.
In the second half the Scottish midfield slowly began to get more and more into the game as the French attack began to struggle to find a break through.
After 67 minutes another Scotland corner was swung over by Paul Hartley, once again it was met by Caldwell but not his head but his left boot and the ball crashed past Coupet and into the French goal.
The remaining 23 minutes brought a few chances for France but nothing could break the Scottish rearguard.
So with 3 games played the World Cup runners-up are 3 points behind a Scottish team that at the start of this campaign could never have imagined being in this position.

Rumours have indicated that Martin O’Neill will soon be welcoming another of his former Celtic players to Villa Park.

Chris Sutton, who is currently a free agent after being released by Birmingham City, has been linked to provide cover for the recently injured Luke Moore for the rest of this season.

If the move is completed Sutton will be the 3rd player to have been rejoined with O’Neill since he returned to management. Stilian Petrov arrived before the transfer deadline from Celtic and Didier Agathe has also signed up after arriving as a free agent.

It will be interesting to see if O’Neill’s transfer policy is to try and re-unite as many of the players who appeared for him in the 2003 UEFA cup final.
Of the starting line up not at Villa Park here is where O’Neill must now look to.

Rab Douglas – now at Leicester City in England
Bobo Balde – still at Celtic
Johan Mjallby – retired due to injury
Joos Valgaeren – now at Club Brugge in Belgium
Neil Lennon – still at Celtic (captain)
Paul Lambert – manager at Wycombe in England
Alan Thompson – still at Celtic
Henrik Larsson – now at Helsingborg IF in Sweden

Out of all the players from this squad the one whose situation O’Neill is watching the closest must surely be Shaun Maloney, who is still at Celtic.
Maloney is currently in his last year of his Celtic contract and talks have reportedly stalled in recent weeks for an extension, this means that as of January, Maloney will be free to talk to other clubs and move for free at the end of the season.
What’s the odds on him ending up at Villa Park?