A few weeks have yet to come and go before the autumn leaves begin to lie thick and still, but you can’t help but feel that the Scottish football season has already offered sufficient glimpses to enable a solid prediction to be made of what lies in store between now and next May.
Mystic Meg may have long since hung up her crystal ball and Pam Ayres wig, but were she to make an unwelcome comeback, chances are she’d be telling us about the season ahead with rather more conviction than she ever did in the matter of the winning lottery numbers.
Let’s take Celtic first. The consensus was that, in the absence of old foes Rangers, Neil Lennon’s side’s most prominent domestic opponent during this campaign would be Apathy FC, as the inevitable trouble-free stroll to a second successive championship was enjoyed. The quest for participation in the Champions League group phase would assume priority status, and the league would just about take care of itself.
Sure enough, Celtic’s SPL form has, to date, been as unconvincing as their Champions League efforts have been accomplished.
A nervy opening day 1-0 win over Aberdeen was only secured late in the match courtesy of a howler by Dons keeper Jamie Langfield, who more or less threw the ball into his own net. And it took a goal by Kris Commons in the third minute of injury time to snatch an unlikely draw at newly-promoted Ross County last week.
Granted the hoops scored four at the weekend to see off the challenge of Inverness CT with consummate ease, but the feeling still persists that they have been distracted so far when it comes to the so-called bread and butter stuff.
That said, that the lucrative group stages of European football’s top competition is now secured is testimony to Celtic’s clear (and perhaps understandable) focus on matters beyond the domestic game.
Celtic fans, mindful of the club’s wretched away record in European competition stretching back to (and including) Martin O’Neill’s glory days, would have suffered sleepless nights over the challenge of Finnish champions HJK Helsinki, but in the end that tie was overcome with the minimum of fuss.
Only Swedish side Helsingborg stood between the club and some much-needed revenue and credibility via the European route, and last week’s admittedly fortuitous 2-0 win on the road ended up being more than enough to see them safely through to the draw for the group stages this coming Thursday.
On Wednesday, Celtic Park lapped up another 2-0 win for an aggregate score of 4-0. After four years of waiting, the hoops have finally made passage to the Champions League rather than wasting the opportunity.
Of course, they may be operating within the football wilderness for now, but we must dwell on the fortunes of Rangers for just a moment. The Ibrox club’s season in the third division is panning out as so many commentators had predicted – that is, the signing of second rate former SPL players will almost certainly be sufficient to take the club to this and next season’s league titles, but the future beyond that point may be rather less clear.
That Rangers play their home matches at Ibrox is particularly telling, of course. For the most part, they will continue to plunder goals and handsome victories at will on their own patch, as their part-time opponents wilt once the legs feel the strain of the huge pitch.
Away from home, as witnessed thus far at Brechin City, Peterhead and Berwick Rangers, the players may well continue to be found wanting. You can predict with some assurance that manager Ally McCoist will talk up the attitude of small teams as playing their own personal ‘cup final’ as a means of covering up the deficiencies of his own players on their travels.
Meanwhile, what of the other SPL sides who surely recognised their opportunity to take advantage of the void left by Rangers? Surprise surprise, the evidence to date suggests that their inconsistency will aid Celtic far too readily. Dundee United won their opening two fixtures before capitulating meekly to injury-ravaged Kilmarnock, and Hearts and Hibs continue to promise much but deliver little in the business of seriously troubling the top end of the league over a long season.
Craig Brown’s Aberdeen have shown some promise thus far, but you wouldn’t put much of your hard-earned coin on them sustaining a credible challenge over the coming months. The same goes for Motherwell, who have just about managed to exit two European competitions long before the group stages hove into view.
So, no prizes for guessing how this season will pan out. Even the aforementioned Mystic Meg would be hard pushed to drum up an interesting but ultimately flawed vision for this season. At least the lottery continues to tantalise with what might be, as opposed to Scottish football’s more predictable course of events to come.