A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing

The more I see, the more I know. The more I know, the less I understand.

So sang Paul Weller on his 1995 song ‘The Changingman’. Of course the sentiment expressed has been around in various forms for centuries, existential in nature as it is.

What is knowledge? Is it, as Orwell averred, power? Or is it wisdom? Don’t ask me. I’m nearly 32 years old and I’ve been in some method of formal education every year since I was four (give or take two years) and recently I’ve felt as if my combined knowledge and experience of life amount to virtually nothing, that I’m a callow fool.

It’s said that your prowess at playing the game of pool is at its peak when you’ve imbibed some alcohol and your self-awareness and inhibitions melt away. You become more relaxed and instinctive, at least until you realise you’ve reached this state. Perhaps life is like this; when you’re young, you barrel through existence, confident in your own abilities and adamant that you have a Unique Selling Point that the world has just yet to discover. And then, like Joe Strummer said, you realise you’re just smart enough to know how dumb you are.

From then on it’s downhill. In some respects, second guessing yourself is a good thing because it stops you from failing, but in others it’s a bad thing as it prevents you from trying. This is the doubt that’s begun to gnaw at me. It affects everything I do, from my ‘music’ (note inverted commas, insisted upon my super-ego) to playing football to writing. It’s not quite fear of falling, it’s something distinct. A fear of having my redundancy and uselessness thrown into sharp relief.

There have been a few occasions recently when I’ve begun to seriously doubt my own judgement. My on-going war against the vapid overuse of the word ‘stunning’ and its declensions for one. I loathe how it appears to have found its way into the style guides of the English speaking media worldwide. I hate how it’s used routinely and dispassionately, and a word that implies the user has had their breath taken from them should never be used dispassionately. Its ubiquity dilutes its effectiveness, the way a ‘fuck’-fuelled rant soon descends into waves of meaningless consonant sounds. No-one appears to share my ire.

More concerning, I have developed an intense dislike of the BBC’s modern reimagining of Sherlock Holmes. I continue to watch due to my long-term love of Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective, but more often than not during the six 90-minute broadcasts, I have found myself bored, repulsed by the over-acting and tired of the slightly self-satisfied air of the production.

And then I check the wires to find that the programme has received almost universal acclaim. People I follow on Twitter rave about it. People plan their lives around watching the live broadcast, or ensuring no-one spoils their enjoyment of the watching their recording. Critics and professional journalists (even the ones I respect) declare it to be the best thing on TV. The best thing in years.

And this is where I start to worry. Am I simply being contrary (which is not entirely unlike me) or worse, am I not intelligent enough to appreciate the programme? Why do I find myself swimming against the tide here? I could certainly list a number of reasons, developed objectively, why I think the programme isn’t much cop, but I lack the self-righteous sense that my opinion is right and everyone else is wrong that I would have had even ten years ago. All I have learned in life is to doubt myself.

On the Corner of Suicide Alley and Memory Lane

My love of the Manic Street Preachers’ music has endured for 15 years now, and it shows no serious signs of abating. In December 2011, I made an 800 mile round trip from Glasgow to London to watch them play all 38 of their singles.

It had barely been a year since I last saw them live; this occasion was also in London, but at the far smaller Brixton Academy. It felt like more than eleven months, a winter ago. That time I had met up with my friend and fellow Manics fan, Alan, and had ‘enjoyed’ a fractured night’s sleep in a hostel near Lancaster Gate after the gig. The next day I met Stefania, an Italian fan of the band and walked around Hyde Park with her.

This time would be slightly different.

Having already seen the band in London, this year at that, I might have been tempted to not buy a ticket for the gig. I’d already seen them a dozen times. But a few things swayed it for me; one, it was to take place in the O2 Arena, a venue that I had long wished to visit (due to patent sports stadia/arena nerdism). Secondly, it was London at Christmas. Thirdly, I would get to catch up with the friends I had met through the band. Oh, and fourthly, with the promise of them playing all their singles, even the ones the band themselves notably hated, I would get to hear a couple of songs I’d never heard live.

I’d probably already made up my mind; these were just justifications.

Over the last year, I’ve heard a couple of people describe music fandom and even having a favoured political party as being a bit like supporting a football team. I suspect both individuals used this frame of reference in the pejorative sense, drawing allusions to the behavioural addiction that many supporters of sporting teams appear to experience.

They do have a point; many people do seem to pick a favourite football or rugby club, political party and increasingly a musical act, and blindly follow said group wherever they go (literally or figuratively). They’ll tend to ignore most, if not all, criticism levelled at their beloved, and defend every decision made by the same. I browse fora dedicated to both my favourite football team and band and it’s clear that some people’s relationships with ‘their team’ or ‘their band’ goes well beyond simply liking the way they play or the music they make.

I’m not entirely innocent in this respect, nor am I guilty in the first degree. I don’t see my football team much these days because I can’t afford the ~£500 it would cost to buy tickets for all their home games each year. Nevertheless, I do endeavour to follow each game played via TV, radio, the internet. Their results can have an adverse or positive effect on my mood. Most of my blogging nowadays concerns their fortunes, or lack of.

I saw the Manics three times in 2011, spending easily ~£500. I’ve already seen them around a dozen times. I had to fight the temptation to buy the new 38 track compilation CD because I already own 37 of the tracks. But I know people who will go to every gig on a tour and buy all seven formats (including Japanese imports) of the new album. I think many people outside fandom would consider that type of behaviour excessive; perhaps that’s why we inside fandom feel so comfortable in each other’s company.

I do procrastinate somewhat when it comes to buying travel tickets and booking hotel accommodation. For some reason I hate it, probably because it’s so expensive and you’re not purchasing anything tangible. You don’t get any form of capital out of the transaction. And there’s a tricky balance to be struck between how much you pay for travel and how much you pay for lodgings.

Train travel is almost prohibitively expensive these days, the bus takes too long, and I didn’t fancy driving, so I was pretty much destined for the plane. Being flexible here helps. I was only really heading down for one night, but staying another night could make the expense of the trip less onerous. For example, flying down on Saturday and returning on Sunday might cost £120+. If I flew down on the Friday and returned on the Sunday the flights would be substantially cheaper. I would have to pay for two nights’ accommodation rather than just the one, but the total package would be overall less of an outlay.

So, I had my ticket, flights, and I managed to find a relatively inexpensive hotel in the London Docklands, just across the Thames from the O2 itself (this seemed like a good idea at the time, but more on that later). I just had to decide what I was doing with myself on the Friday night…

Like many people, I have a large extended family with cousins and second cousins I’ve never met and that I’m only faintly aware of. However, my mother had been asked by her cousin and his wife to be godmother to their first child, a daughter. When I was born, my mother asked Aunt Dot to return the favour. Our two families were close until Dot’s husband Jimmy died, and for whatever reason we (my sister and I at least) lost contact with Dot and the girls, Fiona and Elaine.

That was the case until we all made contact again thanks to the wonder of Facebook. Before my flight to London in January departed Prestwick Airport, I had had lunch with Fiona, now a mother of two herself. We hadn’t spoken in nearly twenty years, which seems absurd; some relationship somewhere along the line had obviously become damaged and our families simply stopped talking to one another. This was something that occurred with more regularity in the days before social networking arrived to save us all.

Fiona’s sister Elaine works and lives in London, not far from Brixton, but had been abroad on holiday when the January gig had taken place. Fiona suggested I text Elaine and arrange to meet her and her family this time round and sent me her phone number.

It took me a while to muster the courage. I’m not a people person at the best of time, even with relatives, and especially ones I hadn’t spoken to for twenty years. I was worried that any suggestion of me visiting would appear that I was angling for some free accommodation for the night, and consciously or not, I think I managed to imply that I had booked a hotel in the Docklands for Friday and Saturday (although it should be noted I’m not great at communication; you should have reached this conclusion if you’ve read this far).

Elaine and her family were unfortunately already engaged on the Friday and Sunday, with a window of a few hours on Saturday afternoon before the gig. This suited me, but left me having to arrange accommodation for the Friday. I hummed and hawed for a while, thinking about staying near the airport (cheap, but in the middle of nowhere), in Croydon, near Elaine’s house (more expensive and in Croydon), or in London itself (ridiculously dear). I think I was browsing Google Earth when the solution hit me.

I’m fascinated by the sea, its scent and its sound, the sight of the horizon. I grew up inland, and I always enjoyed our family visits to the seaside (Fiona and Elaine lived in a coastal town). As I’ve grown older, the sea has meant more and more to me. Sometimes I feel I become lost and overwhelmed by the urban sprawl and the rural expanse and I need to be reminded that there is more water on this planet than land. Being at the coast grounds me, earths me, grants me appreciation of the clay and rock beneath my feet.

There are lots of coastal towns in the UK, in many different stages of decay, each with their own quota of faded seaside glamour (to quote the Delays). As a committed fan of nostalgia and quiet despair, I find myself drawn to towns like Blackpool, Scarborough and Morecambe. I’ve been in the past to Skegness and Barry. But unlike many other coastal towns, Brighton doesn’t appear to be defined by its history as a seaside resort. It seems to be doing quite well for itself as a satellite town (probably because it’s so close to London) with a thriving nightlife, notable gay scene and yet people still go there to be beside the seaside. Like me.

Brighton is only around 45 miles from London, and only 25 from Gatwick. It occurred to me I could stay the night in Brighton and then travel up to London on Saturday morning. A quick check of the train timetables proved this was feasible, and so that was me; my itinerary was confirmed.

It’s rare I’m so organised I manage to get all my logistics sorted a month before my travel date; it was quite relaxing. I like to labour under the apprehension that I’m capable of extemporising and taking care of major travel plans on the hoof, but I’m really not. Come Friday, 16^th December my sister gave me a life into Glasgow Airport, bound for Gatwick.

There had been some snow in the UK that week, and as a result our flight was delayed by around 40-60 minutes. Not that the flight handling agency were keen on sharing that information. A couple of hundred of us stood by the gate for half-an-hour with nary an explanation why our flight had been delayed.

This small delay had an effect on my further travel with the result being I didn’t get checked into my hotel until half-past seven, maybe 90 minutes later than I had anticipated. I was a little tired on top of that, so by the time I’d had a quick nap and charged my compact camera’s battery, it was already creeping towards 9pm and the nightlife was beginning to emerge. Nevertheless, I took a walk from my hotel near West Pier, to the Ferris wheel at Brighton pier and back again, trying to find suitable horizontal surfaces to rest my compact camera on to try and take a long exposure shot of the sea and the still-illuminated pier. The results weren’t so great.

There just happened to be an Odeon cinema next to my hotel, so figuring I wasn’t going clubbing, I might as well take in a film. I saw Sherlock Homes: Game of Shadows, having enjoyed the first instalment. It was, as The Sun might say, an enjoyable knockabout, and when it had finished I walked the 20 yards to my hotel and went to sleep while listening to shouts, screeches and occasional protests to bouncers from the nightclubs four storeys below.

I didn’t rise particularly early, getting out of the hotel for an exploration in daylight around half past eight or so. The sun was still rising above the extant pier, but I wanted to have a closer look at the remains of the West pier. As I stepped onto the shingle beach, I was slightly surprised to see not one but two surfers trying desperately to warm up before braving the English Channel.

There wasn’t much left of the West Pier to see; some iron columns driven into the beach. There seems little point in restoring the pier and it looks like the iron armature will stand as a relic of Brighton’s past for a while yet. After a cursory browse of the shops, I checked out of the hotel and made my way to the station to catch a train to London. I hadn’t as much time in Brighton as I’d liked, and I’ll have to return some day to visit the Lanes as was recommended to me.

Elaine picked me up from the station near her house around half past twelve. I spent the next four hours with her, her partner and their two girls in their kitchen, eating some kind of upmarket tomato soup, looking at old family photographs and playing their upright piano. Oddly, it turned out they had bought the instrument from a shop in Paisley, the proprietor of which I sometimes play football with.

I still had to cross London before I could check in to my hotel, dump my bag and make my way to the venue, so at half past four I boarded a train bound for London Bridge. This allowed me my first glimpse of Renzo Piano’s Shard building if nothing else.

Somewhat coincidentally, my friend in Manics fandom Tim had managed to book a room in the same hotel I had, and he was waiting at Blackwall DLR station when my train arrived. I managed to talk him into waiting for me.

It was then I discovered a small flaw in the hotel I’d booked. It may well have been half a mile away from the arena as the crow flies, but crows can fly and I can’t. And as there was a river between the two buildings, I would have to use public transport.

As we made our way to the O2, Tim and I debated the best method of getting there. Blackwall DLR station was the last in zone 2, but to get to the Dome in the most expedient manner, we would have to change at Canning Town, which is in zone 3. I wasn’t sure if I could do that with my zones 1-2 travelcard, and my attempts to convince Tim to come the long way round with me fell on deaf ears, so we ended up having a race.

Yes, a race. I headed west, taking a DLR to Poplar, changing for Canary Wharf, and then taking the Jubilee line underground one stop to North Greenwich. Tim’s route was much simpler, involving the one change at Canning, and he soundly beat me, meeting Rel and Sheila inside the Dome some twenty minutes before my arrival.

Some Manics fans will queue outside the venue all day and night for a place as close to the stage as possible. Rel, Sheila, Tim and I paid the queue a quick visit to see if we could spy any faces we knew, but we spent more time before doors opening look for food and drink and places to sit down.

For the gig itself, Rel and Sheila had seats while Tim and I were standing, so we went our separate ways around an hour before the first of the evening’s two sets was due to start. On the venue floor, we met another two Manics fans, Ben and Snooki.

The gig itself was fantastic. We stood behind the sound desk, purportedly the place in any music venue where the racket made on stage is best experienced. The band did sound pretty good, probably due to the addition in recent years of Sean Reid on keyboards and trumpet and Wayne Murray on guitar, which has made the band’s live sound much bigger and richer, but the O2’s acoustics and sound system probably had a beneficial effect as well.

I’d divide the Manics’ singles into four categories; 1, epochal songs. 2, pretty damn good songs. 3, songs I really like. 4, rubbish. Most of their singles fall within categories 2 and 3 with thankfully only a handful in 4 (‘So Why So Sad’, ‘She is Suffering’). There are a few singles the band consider to be category 4 I consider category 2 or 3 and therefore don’t play, so this was a good opportunity to hear the likes of Revol and Love’s Sweet Exile in a live setting.

The band were joined by a couple of special guests. Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys enlivened ‘Let Robeson Sing’, and Nina Persson sang her part on ‘Your Love Alone is Not Enough’ in persson.

They ended, as they tend to do these days, with A Design for Life, arguably their signature (category 1) song. Confetti cannons exploded during the climax and Nicky Wire smashed his Maranello bass against the stage, a link to their instrument trashing younger days.

We lingered afterwards, as many Manics fans are prone to do; most others left while the squall of feedback from the climax of A Design for Life was still decaying. Then we went to the bar where we had a pint and a Smirnoff Ice chaser.

I knew before the gig, that if I drank any alcohol, I’d be desperate for terrible fast food come midnight. I think Tim was getting hungry as well, so we decided to head back to Blackwall. By this time, my thought processes had been significantly lubricated to decide that I was going to risk going through zone 3 on my 1-2 zone ticket. Besides, the last westbound train of the evening on the Jubilee line had departed.

As we boarded the DLR for Blackwall, I noticed an individual wearing a hi-vis jacket. A ticket inspector, I surmised. “Don’t worry,” said Tim. “I’ve never seen anyone check tickets on the underground”. As the train pulled out of the station, the ticket inspector, for she was one, walked towards us. She glanced at our tickets, and then turned on her heel and was gone. I’m still none the wiser as to whether my ticket was valid or not.

We returned to the hotel, eagerly anticipating the food we were going to order. Then we saw the menus. There was nothing I fancied and Tim was quoted £10 for a pizza. So instead we just bought two rounds of Peroni and got drunker.

I had nothing to do the next morning; no need to check out until noon and my flight back wasn’t until half past seven. I woke at my leisure, had a cup of tea and a shower. I met Tim at check out, and when the DLR bound for Bank rolled up at the station, the window that halted in front of us was filled with the faces of three Manics fans we happened to know.

At Bank, the five of us switched to the northbound Northern line, but we were destined for different destinations. Tim got off at Angel, the rest of us Kings Cross. I was heading for Oxford Street under the misconception I might get some Christmas shopping done. Instead, I did what I do almost every time I visit Oxford Street and left.

I normally find myself taking the same route away from the UK’s most over-hyped retail area; eastbound towards Tottenham Court Road, then down Charing Cross to Shaftesbury Avenue before eventually ending up in Covent Garden. I’m not sure why Covent Garden, I just feel comfortable there for some reason.

After a short walk along the South Bank, I was so traumatised (and with my legs still aching from standing for three hours the previous evening) and tired of life that I decided to leave London. While it was still a good few hours until my flight, I felt as if I’d be more comfortable reading a book in the departure lounge than wandering aimlessly around a city I’ve seen most of, by myself.

And that was the weekend over, save my flight being delayed by 90 minutes or so and a vague hint that the airline and/or handling agency didn’t deal with the situation as competently as they might. To top it all, when I attempted to buy some chips on the drive back to the house, the first chip shop didn’t have any. Chips that is.

But it was a great weekend, and one of my most enjoyable experiences travelling to see the Manics play. I perhaps didn’t get to see or meet as many people as I could have, but I enjoyed the company of the ones I did.

That might be quite a saccharine thought to end this on, but I find I don’t often enjoy my expeditions. This one I did.

The Edu Conundrum

I’m going to keep this short, because it’s about three hours until Christmas day, but I’m a little disgruntled about Rangers’ performance against St. Mirren earlier and blogging about it might take my mind off it because it doesn’t look like the club are going to do anything about the underlying reason why it happened any time soon.

Rangers started today’s match four points clear of Celtic at the top of the SPL. Next Wednesday they go into the derby game, against Celtic. Three points from this match would have been welcome to keep the cushion at the top of the league intact, a safety net of sorts in case they do happen to drop points against their great rivals. Rangers started with a traditional looking 4-4-2, a line up Ally McCoist hasn’t always gone with this season. The midfield consisted of Lee McCulloch and Steven Davis in the centre, with Lee Wallace on the left and Gregg Wylde on the right, servicing a front pairing of Kyle Lafferty and Nikica Jelavic.

With eleven minutes gone, the Rangers manager’s selection, which had been denounced by some internet commentators as negative, appeared to justify itself when left-back Sasa Papac picked out Lee Wallace’s enterprising run with an incisive pass and the nominal midfielder cut inside before eventually bundling the ball past Craig Samson and into the St. Mirren net. However, just ten minutes later Lee McCulloch foolishly and half-heartedly threw an elbow at Graham Carey during a Rangers set-piece and referee Steven McLean felt he had no option but to send McCulloch off.

Assessing his options, McCoist decided that the best course of action was to replace the quiet Gregg Wylde with Maurice Edu, and this I think was his major tactical error of the day. Let me try and explain why.

Maurice Edu isn’t a very good footballer. He’s not particularly bad either though, evidenced by thirty caps for the United States and the 2007 MLS Rookie of the Year award. The problem, it appears to me, is that he’s just average, and the continual selection of an average player is beginning to have an sustained negative effect on Rangers’ football.

After McCulloch’s dismissal and Edu’s introduction this afternoon, Lafferty dropped back into to right midfield; St. Mirren began enjoying huge swathes of possession, and in a couple of minutes before half-time, they’d scored two goals to completely turn the game around. Despite Sone Aluko coming on at half-time for Lafferty, Rangers weren’t able to score again, and they saw their SPL lead cut to just one point.

Is this Edu’s fault? Not specifically. But Rangers title successes in each of the previous three seasons have been tempered by grumbling among fans that the football they play hasn’t been very good at times. Negative. Overly cautious. Anti-football. It’s probably a coincidence that Edu was signed from MLS in August 2008, but perhaps not. Walter Smith’s teams in his second spell at Rangers were famed for being defensively sound first and offensive second, and many of my fellow fans suspect Ally McCoist, despite his goal-scoring heroics as a player, has imprinted on Smith somewhat. Despite injury travails to both players, Smith and McCoist have chosen at least one of Edu and Lee McCulloch in all but five of the club’s last 96 matches. This, the club’s fanbase suspects, is because the two players are felt by the management to be holding/defensive midfielders, who when selected offer defensive reinforcement that compliments Steven Davis, allowing the Irishman to be more creative.

This notion, I feel, is fatally flawed on two counts. It could be argued that Rangers shouldn’t need to play a holding or defensive midfielder in the SPL, never mind two. Secondly, it’s debatable whether Edu can even be considered a defensive midfielder; despite his energetic closing down of players, he rarely puts a tackle of note in, can let players run off him, and more often than not Davis can be closer to his own goal than him.

In an offensive sense, Edu is not noted for his dribbling, shooting, goal-scoring or incisive passing. Combined with his over-exaggerated defensive abilities you end up with a midfield player that can look quietly competent doing the simple thing in a five man midfield when his team is dominant, and less so in situations like today, in a team down to ten men and conceding possession and territory. This is why, when I learned Edu was going to replace Wylde, I became apprehensive. When Edu plays, Davis starts to drop deeper and deeper for whatever reason. This negates him as an attacking threat, leaving Edu as the more advanced midfielder. When Lafferty plays right-midfield, this puts more pressure on Whittaker due to the former’s lack of concentration and poor positional sense leaving the latter’s own defensive frailties more exposed. The net result of this is the Rangers defensive line creeps closer and closer to its own goal, inviting more and more pressure upon it, without any of the four midfielders able to link with the lone striker to offer an out. An out Wylde can and may have offered today.

This is the problem with Edu. It’s less noticeable when Rangers are on top and dominating in games, which is quite often, but when the side are trailing, he is less than useless. In 70 appearances this season and last, he’s contributed seven goals and three assists, which again is kind of average. He may well be contributing to Rangers’ impressive clean-sheet record in recent times, but that could be due as much to the excellent goalkeeper, strong defence and potent attack as it is the nominal defensive midfielder. My concern is thus; Rangers, Walter Smith and Ally McCoist have convinced themselves that a defensive midfielder is a necessity in this day and age, and that Jack-of-all-trades, masters-of-none Edu and McCulloch are the two members of the squad best equipped to perform the role. This unnecessary appendix is dragging the rest of the team down, resulting in the types of dull, fraught, stagnant performances Rangers fans are experiencing in recent times.

Maurice Edu is a decent footballer and may thrive in at a higher level than the SPL. But for the sake of Rangers, he’s got to go.

Belling the Cat

Browsing Alzheimer Scotland’s Football Memories site, I began to reminisce about the times I would discuss the latest calamity to befall Scottish football (among other things) with my much-missed grandfather. While some of my relatives suffered from varying forms of dementia, he thankfully retained his sharp intellect until the end of his life. Pleasantly for me, this allowed us to spend 13 years dissecting and debating the game of football.

While he was a Glasgow boy by birth and schooling, by the time I was born in 1980, he’d spent a little time in Gloucestershire, served in the Navy during WWII and lived on Tayside for at least 12 years before moving back west. Football was the one constant though. He played at secondary school, and possibly for the navy (or with/in the navy; my memory doesn’t retain the exact preposition), and when work took him to the East Coast in the late 1950s, he took pleasure in watching the great Hibernian and Dundee sides of the era. As far as I can recall, he never followed one particular club side, and that lack of allegiance possibly informed the controversial plan for Scottish football we hatched one summer…

Between 1960 and 1985, Rangers and Celtic both won the Scottish football league title. But so did Dundee, Kilmarnock, Aberdeen and Dundee United. Since 1985 however, only Rangers and Celtic have been Champions. To cut a long story short, we decided that the best way forward for Scottish football to avoid becoming a hopeless duopoly was to adopt a system similar to US Sports) , with franchise club sides, academies, drafts et al, in an attempt to make the game here more egalitarian. Resources would be maximised; young players would hopefully emerge from the academies with a broader outlook on life and their sport, and Scottish football would be saved!

However, neither of us was daft enough to think such a scheme would ever come to fruition. Getting the football establishment onside would be one thing; the supporters would be nigh on impossible. Football fans are a curious breed you see; they’d much rather follow a side that was doing badly than compromise that connection with their. In many ways you can respect that. We can all moan about the SFA and the SPL and the numerous other governing bodies obstructing progress, but I think the fans themselves are equally guilty of holding Scottish football back.

This doesn’t just manifest itself in blind loyalty and borderline addiction to the individual’s club, it’s the lack of sophistication among those that watch and play our game. It’s the constant looking back to the glory days of the 60s/50s/20s/1890s etc (depending on your club). It’s the Scottish national team being lumbered with the ball and chain of Dalglish, Law, Bremner et al when we did absolutely hee haw with those players in the side either. It’s the appreciation of the guy that ‘did a lot of running’ while chiding the player that made fewer, cleverer runs for being lazy. But football fans love to moan. They’ll whine about the price of the pies in the ground to the right-back’s lime-green boots. It’s only when you present potential solutions to their woes that they go quiet.

Last year, Henry McLeish presented his report on Scottish football. Most of the stakeholders’ suggestions for change outlined in the report probably won’t come to pass. That is of course partly due to funding issues, but also because Scottish people (and perhaps British people as a whole) aren’t fond of change. How often have we witnessed wailing and gnashing of teeth after debacles on the continent by our club and national sides, how often have we clamoured for a more technical, considered outlook in our football, only to revert back to humping long balls to the big striker on the Saturday?

Previous entries in this blogathon have touched on the theme of reform of Scottish football, but I remain to be convinced there’s a real chance any of it will ever happen. There’s a definite small-c conservatism in the Scottish game that will resist and obstruct many of these grand designs. Most of this conservatism will manifest itself in the boardrooms of clubs and the offices of the governing bodies, but I’m not at all sure your average supporter is remotely interested in seeing wholesale changes to his particular club, that might allow all of our teams, and the Scottish national team, to eventually flourish.

The talk of reforming Scottish football reminds me of that old joke; how many psychologists does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one, but the lightbulb has to want to change.

The Number of the Beast

6-6-6 used to be enough to strike terror into the heart of God-fearing Scots. Now the number of the beast is 4-6-0, the formation Craig Levein decided to utilise when Scotland played the Czech Republic in Prague in October 2010, an event that will be hereafter referred to as THE 4-6-0. To send out a team without a recognised striker was anathema, heresy to Scottish football fans that still cling to misty memories of the 1950s Dundee and Hibs teams, five forwards and tricky, strawweight wingers. Tonight, just over a year to the day since THE 4-6-0, Scotland lost to Spain and as a result saw their hopes of Euro 2012 qualification evaporate once again.

I didn’t watch the game; I’ve seen this film too many times. I went to the cinema instead. Driving back, I listened to the phone-in on Radio Scotland, and wasn’t surprised to hear calls for Levein’s resignation, with most of them referencing THE 4-6-0, and some suggesting the names of replacements, such as Graeme Souness and Jim Jefferies. I know Scotland have lost (against the World champions no less) and have failed to qualify for another tournament, but we need to exercise a little circumspection here.

THE 4-6-0, used as a stick with which to beat Levein, is a red herring. Or a knee jerk reaction. Or a car-crash of a mixed metaphor. As Jonathan Stevenson notes in his book Inverting the Pyramid, 4-6-0 may well be the next stage in the evolution of formation (football’s dominant formation has already lost roughly a striker every decade since the 60s). And people bemoan 4-5-1 as a defensive formation. The truth is, the attacking or defensive quotient of a football team is not decided by the formation, but the players utilised in that formation, and the team’s tactics. Scotland’s problems under Levein have not been so much as a result of the formation, but more a crippling fear of losing and the fitting of square peg players into round hole positions. So let’s have more informed criticism of Levein’s methods and less invoking the bogeyman of THE 4-6-0.

(A digression; you could argue that Barcelona, arguably the greatest club side of all time,  technically play a form of 4-6-0; after all, who needs a designated genuine no. 9 when you have Leo Messi?)

At this juncture, I don’t think Levein should be replaced as manager. For his array of failings, he has instilled a sense of camaraderie in the squad, and results have picked up somewhat since the Burley days (this wouldn’t be hard admittedly). I would like to see a continuity of squad and manager into the World Cup 2014 qualifiers, and as we haven’t (yet) lost any players to retirement I don’t believe it would be wise to replace the manager. Who would take the job anyway? There’s a reason Graeme Souness is working as a TV pundit and hasn’t had a management role since being sacked as Newcastle manager five years ago.

That said, there are certain criteria Levein has to meet in the next qualification campaign. Finishing at least second in the group is a must. Sorting out the ridiculous Steven Fletcher situation is another necessity. I don’t mind Scotland playing 4-5-1 so much, but packing the midfield 5 with 5 central midfielders is counter-productive. The incessant dropping back to our own penalty box when we take a lead needs to stop as well. And we need to lost the fear. Exercising caution against teams like Liechtenstein and Lithuania is in many ways respectable, but it’s getting us nowhere as an international football team.

In conclusion, I’m broadly in favour of Levein continuing. He’s not perfect, but I think he will learn from his mistakes (begrudgingly). But we could, and we need, to do better.

Striker-lite

Last season, when Kris Boyd made his ill-fated move to Middlesbrough, I devised a method of standardising goalscoring records across various leagues and divisions. You see, player A might score 200 career goals, and player B only 100. But A’s goals came in the Scottish Football League first division, and B’s in the English Premier League, so while A had the better scoring record, B would almost certainly be a more effective goalscorer. I based my matrix on the coefficients used to calculate the European Golden Shoe, Europe’s top league goalscorer, each season. As most Scottish strikers play in either Scotland or England, this was fairly straightforward;  Goals scored in Scotland would be multiplied by 1.5, and in England, by 2. To calculate the value of goals scored in each division within a league, I used the following coefficients;

Level 1	1
Level 2	0.75
Level 3	0.5
Level 4	0.25
Level 5 (Non League)	0.125

So, for example, Steven Fletcher’s 10 goals for Wolverhampton Wanderers in season 2010-11 would be worth 20 points (20 x 1 x 1), while Craig Mackail-Smith’s 27 for Peterborough would be worth 27 (27 x 2 x 0.5) and Leigh Griffiths’ 8 for Dundee worth 9 (8 x 1.5 x 0.75). I’ve also attempted to take into account a player’s goals scored in their career in international matches and European condition, their age, and their recent form. I’ve also attempted to quantify a player’s effectiveness, which is represented by (career league goal points + career international & European goal points/current age), and their form ((current season league goal points x3, last season league goal points x2, two seasons ago league goal points)x5 + career international & European goal points/current age).

In a comparison table, I have then multiplied the player’s career league goal points total by their effectiveness and their form, and divided by 100 to give me their notional striker rating. For the three players noted above, Steven Fletcher’s is 74.18, Mackail-Smith’s 53.12 and Griffiths’ is 8.16. Of course, these calculations aren’t remotely scientific, but the results are pleasingly intuitive. Kenny Miller has the highest rating of the 33 strikers considered, 349.09. Craig Beattie’s is the lowest, 2.3. For an element of control, I applied the same reckoning to Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen, Peter Crouch and Kyle Lafferty. Again, the results were in line with expectations;

Cristiano Ronaldo	2726.66
Lionel Messi	2054.94
Wayne Rooney	1165.47
Michael Owen	246.03
Peter Crouch	130.44
Kyle Lafferty	22.88

The Striker ranking is at its simplest level a method of measuring the likelihood a particular striker will score in a notional game played at the highest level of football, such as the European Champions League Final or the World Cup Final. As such, I would suggest that any striker with a ranking on my system higher than 1000 is likely to be able to score continually at any level of the game. The problem facing Scotland is that our ‘best’ striker has a ranking of only a third of said threshold.

Of course, all of the above, even if it were scientifically sound, is somewhat irrelevant to the modern concept of a striker. Nowadays, forwards are judged less on the quantity of goals they score but what they add to the team in terms of running channels, pressing defenders and bringing team-mates into the equation in the attacking third. English clubs have spent a combined total of nearly £50 million pounds in transfer fees on Peter Crouch, who at the age of 30 has a relatively paltry goalscoring return of 100. Similarly, Kevin Davies has played 420 games in the top-flight of English football and has scored just 83 goals in return. Nevertheless, he’s been a first pick on the Bolton teamsheet for the last eight seasons.

That’s not to say there haven’t been strikers with poor scoring rates in the past (Robert Rosario springs to mind), but it appears that the classic notion of the ‘goalhanger’ is fast becoming obsolete. Centre-forward is no longer the specialist position it once was, and it’s telling. Very few players fielded in attacking positions have  the same goalscoring instinct, the same anticipation, the same experience to steal into the six yard box and convert a cross, compared to even 15 years ago. Lionel Messi is the exception to this rule, and that’s only because his footballing gifts are so ridiculously plenteous. 

While the rich football clubs and larger footballing nations will be able to develop and procure strikers that combine the new physical requirements with the mental attributes of yesteryear, smaller nations like Scotland are already struggling. There are fewer strikers coming through the youth ranks than midfielders, an anomaly my colleague, a youth coach, attributes to youngsters wishing to play in midfield ‘where the action is’. As such, at international level, Craig Levein’s options are limited. There aren’t many Scottish strikers that combine physicality and goalscoring.

It’s interesting to look at the top 15 Scottish strikers in my ranking system in order from 1-15, as a rough guide; Kenny Miller, Kris Boyd, Derek Riordan, Steven Fletcher, Craig Mackail-Smith, Andy Gray, Steven Naismith, Kris Commons, Garry O’Connor, Chris Iwelumo, Steve Howard, Lee Miller, Ross McCormack, Colin Nish and David Clarkson.  David Goodwillie currently ranks 16. Boyd, Commons and Howard have barely played this season, Iwelumo hasn’t scored, David Clarkson and Lee Miller are playing in League One in England, Colin Nish has never previously received a call-up. Derek Riordan now plays in China and presumably is off the radar. Garry O’Connor will not be picked while he has a court case hanging over his head. Andy Gray hasn’t won a cap in eight years and Levein isn’t on speaking terms with Steven Fletcher. If the manager does call up a replacement for Miller, it would surely be McCormack (it’s a little surprising he’s not in the squad in the first place).

It’s been one year since Scotland’s now infamous dalliance with a 4-6-0 formation in Prague. Does it seem longer? Perhaps. It’s very likely that Craig Levein won’t select a Scotland starting XI with no forward position again in a hurry, but that doesn’t mean he thinks he was wrong. In his treatise on the history of football formations, Jonathan Wilson supposes that 4-6-0 may become convention over time, the way 4-2-4 replaced 2-3-5 and 4-4-2 succeeded 4-2-4, the next logical step of football becoming primarily about containing the opposition, with goalscoring a secondary consideration.

However, to contemporary fans, the concept of their team fielding a team with no designated striker is anathema (although I’m sure acolytes of 50s football felt the same about losing one of their 5 strikers; it still happened), and the criticism levelled at Levein by supporters and media reflects that view. Was he wrong? Well, Scotland lost the match, so technically, yes. But watching the changing role of the forward in football over the last twenty years, I’m not so sure that 4-6-0 should be sniffed at quite so haughtily.

As I write this, it appears unlikely that Miller will play either game, due to a thigh or hamstring injury. That leaves Scotland with two fit, recognised strikers, presuming Levein doesn’t call up a replacement. And I’m not sure he will. Craig Levein was a centre back for Hearts and Scotland, a defender by trade. While position as a player doesn’t always inform sensibilities as a manager, the current Scotland coach appears to be somewhat distrustful of attacking players. It would certainly explain why he was so keen on 4-6-0, and why he seems loathe to mend relations with Steven Fletcher. Or call up Ross McCormack. The two remaining strikers in his squad have scored a grand total of 0 international goals between them. I suspect at some point in Levein’s tenure we will see a 4-5-1 with Steven Naismith as a false 9, a 4-6-0 in all but name.

Scotland will do well to score against the European and World Champions, Spain, on their home patch. But the line-up, formation and score against Liechtenstein will do much to suggest the attacking tack Scotland will pursue in the next decade or so. I hope it involves goals.

The Curious Case of Maurice Edu and Cognitive Dissonance (and dodgy statistics)

Every football team has at least one player that polarises opinion; Darren Fletcher was the archetype for the trope for years at Manchester United, although in recent years he appears to have become more universally accepted among their support. At Rangers, numerous players have divided the denomination over the last few seasons, from Alan Hutton and Charlie Adam, through to current incumbents Kyle Lafferty and Maurice Edu.

Edu, a Californian-born graduate of the University of Maryland, came to Rangers in 2008 from Major League Soccer side Toronto, with whom he had won the previous season’s MLS Rookie of the Year award. In his first season at Ibrox, he featured sparingly until the Spring of 2009, after which he enjoyed a run in the team as Rangers secured their first league title in four years. However, during the 3-0 victory over Dundee United that sealed the Championship, Edu suffered a knee injury that would rule him out for six months. His injury problems continued throughout the 2009-10 season, restricting him to only ten starts in all competitions.

2010-11 was more encouraging for the American. After a strong showing at the World Cup with the USA, he started 40 of Rangers’ 55 games in all competitions, and recorded five goals and two assists. However, there were perhaps some lingering doubts about the midfielder’s performances and overall form, particularly in the third quarter of the season. He didn’t look comfortable in possession, or going into tackles and appeared to have developed an unfortunate habit of slipping and tripping over the ball. Perhaps his season could be summed up by his performance against Valencia in the Champions League in October; some thirteen minutes after giving Rangers the lead with a header (during which he took a goalkeeper’s fist to the face), he sent a second header into his own net to equalise for the Spaniards.

At this point, it could be suggested that Edu’s hesitant performances were exasperating the Ibrox crowds, and their exasperation was further affecting Edu’s performances. A vicious circle that showed every sign of continuing in Rangers’ first eight or so games of the 2011-2012 campaign. However, it should be noted that for five of those matches, Edu was partnered in central midfield by Lee McCulloch, a pairing that has never been particularly effective for Rangers, as illustrated by the following table:

2009/10 Edu/McCulloch central midfield conundrum

Presence	No. of Matches	Win Rate
Neither starting	2	100%
McCulloch only	13	69.2%
Edu only	28	64.3%
Both	12	58.3%
Overall	55	65.5%

When Rangers play McCulloch and Edu together in midfield, Steven Davis, the more creative of the three is often fielded on the right, where his influence is diminished. Additionally, McCulloch and Edu are very similar in how they play within the Rangers midfield. They’re supposed to break up the opponent’s possession, close down, ferry the ball to the more creative players. However, Rangers’ system in the last two seasons (when playing either 4-4-2 or the 4-4-1-1) doesn’t allow for two sitting midfielders. As a result the counter-attacking threat the team have developed over the years (by accident or design) is tempered by having two midfielders that aren’t particularly adept at playing fast and direct passing football.

Of course, the above data should not be taken as gospel, and I’m certainly not a statistician, but it does appear to bear witness to the grumblings coming from the Ibrox terraces and cyberspace. Subjectively speaking, I don’t like the Edu/McCulloch partnership, for the reasons I delineated in the preceding paragraph. Whether coincidence or not, the five games Rangers have played this season with Edu and McCulloch starting in midfield saw some pretty turgid displays. Rangers won one league game and drew one; lost and drew against Malmo in the Champions League qualifier; lost and drew against Maribor in the Europa League play-off.

Of course, it’s not simply that McCulloch and Edu are incompatible as players; there’s the additional problem that neither is in a particularly rich vein of form. McCulloch has struggled for most of 2011 with knee problems, and hasn’t looked nearly fit enough this season. Edu, as I have previously intimated has been struggling with what appear to be confidence issues, culminating in the game against Malmo where he appeared to be taking up positions where his team-mates wouldn’t have been able to pass to him. However, since Rangers’ exit from both European competitions, Edu seems to be playing more adeptly. It could be argued that the fact Lee McCulloch has been struggling with injury and hasn’t started any of the last six matches has been a key factor in Edu, and Rangers’ renaissance.

However, this brings us to cognitive dissonance. A poster on a Rangers’ forum coined the phrase to explain the reluctance of some other members to give Edu credit for his improved performances, arguing that they’d already decided Edu wasn’t a good player and wouldn’t give him credit, even begrudgingly. He does have a point; the adoption of favoured players and scapegoats has long been a breeding ground for contradictory attitudes among football fans where an unfancied player will be criticised for his on-pitch failings while a more popular colleague will be exempted from similar chiding for identical, or worse, failings.

Maurice Edu may well now be the victim of adaptive preference formation, as well as the boo-boys. But he might equally be the beneficiary of cognitive dissonance. While the fans that were scapegoating him might be slow to give him credit for his recent improved performances, it appears to me that defenders of the player’s abilities and potential are now over-stating his current form. Evidence of this might include the denigration of Lee McCulloch; his appearance in the League Cup loss against Falkirk resulted in claims that the club wouldn’t have lost ‘if Edu were playing’. I’ve also read comments online suggesting Edu’s quieter performances are due to him playing a similar role to Sergio Busquets at Barcelona and that his anticipation “borders on telepathy”. I also remain to be convinced that his goal against Dunfermline today was quite as well executed as some are suggesting.

A poll for today’s man of the match on the aforementioned supporters’ website, as of 7pm, sees Edu with 8.16% of the vote, 1.02% behind Steven Naismith, who scored two goals. Contrastingly, in the vote on Rangers’ official Facebook page, Edu has 3.46% and Naismith 11.2%. This disparity could be due to a number of factors; posters on the fan’s forum have more in-depth knowledge of football perhaps. Maybe more people on Facebook were at the game.

Whichever poll is correct, most people seem to think that Maurice Edu was the third best player in a Rangers shirt today. They might well be right, but I haven’t been convinced by even Edu’s better performances this season. Perhaps that’s due to me choosing not to see what is readily apparent to everyone else. I have suspected that the people raving about Edu after the last two league matches have simply had such reduced expectations of the player due to his performances over the past two seasons. Therefore, in a match where he plays competently by other players’ standards, by his own he will appear to have had a terrific game.

I do suspect that’s simply me being churlish however. is it a coincidence that Rangers have won 83% of the matches that Edu has started, without McCulloch, this season? I’ll be quite honest; I don’t rate Edu as a player, and I’m not sure he has the ability or the tools to be anything more than a 7/10 player for Rangers. I can’t see this terrific form he’s in that others see. But if Rangers keep winning while he’s in the side, that’s good enough for me.

Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true.

On the way home from 5-a-side football the other night, I turned on the car radio to listen to the live League Cup commentary, a bit of background noise to keep me entertained during the trip. I initially tuned to Radio 5 Live, as if Rangers are playing, I don’t tend to listen to Radio Scotland’s Sportsound programme (but more on that later). Shortly afterwards, I had retuned to Radio Scotland because Radio 5, in their wisdom, had selected Craig Burley as co-commentator on the evening’s featured game.

In theory I shouldn’t mind Burley; he’s fairly even-handed, will call things as he seems them with no concession as to whether the players are ex-colleagues or not (see Ray Wilkins for a sugar-coated contrast), and is reasonably intelligent. But the man is so lugubrious, it becomes difficult to listen to him for longer than ten minutes without feeling the urge to contact the Samaritans. While his fellow BBC analyst Mark Lawrenson can sound unenthusiastic and miserable if he’s not interested in either team playing (International tournaments) or if England are losing, Burley sounds like he’s bearing the weight of the world in every game he watches. I’d almost swear the man doesn’t like football.

So, I ended up on Sportsound’s ‘Open All Mics’ coverage of the Scottish Communities League Cup. Said programme is hosted by one presenter, in this case Richard Gordon, and instead of featuring one full commentary as its English counterparts, it instead has correspondents despatched to each game being played, who will then exclaim loudly and inarticulately to draw Gordon and the listener’s attention to the fact something’s happening in their game. This may have been an interesting idea, but in practice it sounds like live radio coverage of an orgy. In between climaxes, the panel chat about stuff and nonsense, generally loosely connected to what’s happening on the pitch, and last night one of them brought up Davie Cooper’s memorable goal in the Drybrough Cup final of August 1979.

They talked quite happily about the goal for 30 seconds or so before Chick Young pipes up that he doesn’t think it was the Drybrough Cup, but the Glasgow Cup. Richard Gordon pauses for a beat, then agrees with Young. In under a minute, Chick Young’s inexplicably enduring and pervasive influence on BBC and Radio Scotland has once again ensured that all facts and thus any chance at informed debate have gone out of the window.

Back at the house, I found myself watching a fairly run-of-the-mill programme on ITV4 entitled ‘20 Goals that Shook the World’ featuring, as you might expect, 20 goals that were reasonably controversial or impressive at the time they were scored. A succession of talking heads gave their opinion on why they thought each goal was controversial or impressive, and this is all fine until we reach Andy Townsend and his lack of knowledge of any adjective other than ‘stunning’. Most mainstream journalists tend to over-use the word ‘stun’ and its variants, existing in a semi-permanent state of incredulity it appears, but Townsend takes the biscuit. Stunningly.

I’ve harboured a crackpot theory for the last couple of years now that the simply appalling standard of football commentators, pundits and reporters in the UK is partly responsible for British players being so limited technically and in terms of imagination compared to their compatriots around the world. I have, of course, no way of proving this. My language skills are not good enough to allow me to comprehend first hand what insights European commentators and analysts bestow on their audiences, and so I can only base my theory on my observations of the British game.

We have media that covers football on television, on radio and in print. Almost to a man (and the occasional woman), the individuals in this sector are prone the hyperbole, cliché, stereotype, jingoism. They don’t know the laws of the game. They don’t appear to be familiar with the English language for the most part. Most, if not all of them haven’t been involved in professional football for 10+ years and so haven’t kept up do date with modern developments. Almost all foreign players and teams are dismissed with ‘we don’t know much about them/him’.

It’s only been in recent years, perhaps as a reaction to the poor quality fare offered by the BBC and ITV, and certainly as a result of the growing blogosphere and Twitter, that more in-depth analyses of football have become available to the fan that wants to learn about such things. But for the average punter, the suggestible type, exposed only to the mainstream media? Hopefully at some point we’ll all become tired of inaccuracy and cliché, commentators talking about players being ‘denied by the woodwork’, analysts absolving a player of making a violent, dangerous tackle because ‘he got the ball’. At some point we’ll realise that it’s not actually that impressive when our British midfielder plays a 40 yard cross-field pass or controls the ball with one touch because almost every decent footballer in the world can do that. But I’m not going to hold my breath.

The World Has Changed and Left Me Here

On my way to the supermarket to fulfil my late-night 21^st century consumerist desires I listened to Radio 5’s retrospective broadcast of their contemporary reporting of 9/11. Their New York correspondent Stephen Evans was recalling his experiences on the day, and the programme featured archive recordings of Evans being asked live by Simon Mayo if he could confirm whether a plane had crashed into the North tower. He didn’t know for certain, he’d said. Looking back ten years later he commented the attack made him realise that journalism had changed when London knew more about what was happening in New York than he did, on the ground in the city.

The radio was my companion on the longer but less travelled back road to the shop. It circuits the shoulders of the strath and back down the other side and I’d taken it mainly because the moon, hanging full and low in the sky, bewitched me. From the road’s highest point you can see the whole of the Clyde valley, street-lights twinkling, with the airport and the Campsie Fells beyond in the distance. I pulled up here, where the routes of the railway line and road are at their closest, got out and stood on the road, looking at the moon and the cityscape, feeling the win buffet my hair. Hurricane Katia is supposed to be heading the way of the UK and I wondered if this was the first signs of the oncoming storm.

I found myself thinking about the Glasgow of my childhood, the words of the BBC correspondent reverberating in my mind. Where I was currently standing was a space almost untouched by time. It’s remained almost unaffected by progress, green belt encroachment, economics, global warfare…the location and view is almost exactly the same as it was 25 years ago. For all intents and purposes, standing in that place is a form of time travel. I can connect with the Jay whose age was measured in single figures and remember how mysterious the world used to appear to me. My life has changed immeasurably over the last ten years, but that’s not due to 9/11. The attacks on New York City instead form my generation’s ‘Kennedy’ moment, a singular point in time where we will all remember where we were when we first discovered the news. For what it’s worth, I was preparing to return to university for my second year, and on the Tuesday in question I was collecting my gran’s shopping for her. She phoned to tell me “a plane has crashed, and the World Trade Centre is on fire”. I didn’t realise the two were connected at the time.

The more we know, the less we understand. I know little and understand less. This never used to be a problem when I was young. A driving licence, the internet and years of painful experience have stripped this city (and life) of its mystery, leaving me cynical and emotionally withdrawn. I left here at 20 to go to university; now eleven years later my peers are all married or parents and I’m stuck in a satellite town of a satellite town that doesn’t remember me.

But right here, right now, I recall feelings and sensations. Being able to just make out the floodlights of the old Hampden from the living room of my gran’s council flat. The abrasiveness of my father’s five o’clock shadow whenever he hugged me. Having a bedtime to be up past. Rusting street lamps and grass growing between kerbstones in parts of the city I didn’t have the foresight to learn the names of. The dull green glow of a Ford Capri’s internal illumination. Listening to longwave Francophone radio transmissions on my personal stereo under my bedclothes in a house without double glazing or central heating.

I long for a simpler time because I mourn the loss of my innocence. I can drive to the gaudily-illuminated supermarket at 9pm on a Saturday night and browse Twitter on my smart phone while I’m selecting my trans fat loaded items, but I know I can’t afford to buy too much because I have a mobile phone bill to pay and the car needs MOTd and taxed within the next two weeks. Being an adult in this time of increasingly clever technology, and perhaps finally having a career to show for twenty-seven years of study is exciting, but the responsibility of being an adult terrifies me.

I find myself longing to reconnect with elements of my youth, less because it was a simpler time, or there was less of a terror threat (I grew up during the tail end of the Cold War, the Northern Irish troubles and at age 8, a passenger jet exploded less than a hundred miles from my house, something that would cause me to dream about aviation disasters for decades); I just wish I could reconnect with the innocence and naivety and wonder I used to possess. When I used to have to work to find out information, rather than have it served to me by wireless and 3G technology.

It’s not healthy to dwell on the past, I know. But I think my nostalgia is also telling me that I’ve outgrown this place, and it’s challenging me to do something about it. I’m not sure that I can.

Hail Mary Doll

You can emerge from behind the sofa now; Scotland’s international footballing endeavours are over for another month. After a draw against the Czech Republic and narrow victory over Lithuania, reaching the play-off stages of the Euro 2004 qualifiers is still mathematically possible, but it looks increasing less likely to happen.

It’s perhaps a sign of increased expectations under Levein’s stewardship that a two-all draw with the Czech Republic is met with wailing and national gnashing of teeth; said result would probably have been a highlight under his predecessor. But that’s not to say there aren’t still lingering concerns regarding Levein’s management and coaching skills.

In both matches of the double header, Scotland lined up 4-5-1, a formation guaranteed to instantly set Scottish fans’ teeth on edge due to its perceived negativity. Of course, 4-5-1 isn’t necessarily defensive as evidenced by Manchester United and Barcelona playing  variations of it. It depends on the personnel. On Saturday, Scotland started with Charlie Adam as a deep-lying playmaker, with Scott Brown and Darren Fletcher in front of him.  James Morrison and Steven Naismith were the wide players, presumably charged with drifting infield to allow full backs Phil Bardsley and Alan Hutton to advance down the wings. This is fine in theory, but as usual with Scotland, fluency in passing and movement was notable by its absence.

Charlie Adam is renowned for his range of passing, but he’s also infamous for over-ambitious Hollywood balls (or long diagonals to give them their technical name) and generally ceding possession more than a player of his status should. Against the Czechs, his distribution unfortunately belonged more in the latter category, but he wasn’t alone; the whole of the midfield struggled to find players wearing a same coloured shirt, which was at least partly due to being denied space by the Czechs and partly due to their own paucity of movement and apparent lack of motivation. Scotland’s main tactic for getting into the attacking third of the pitch was the long diagonal by Adam or Caldwell, an approach long favoured by Scottish coaches, but an approach whose impreciseness leads to surrendering possession.

Scotland’s two goals each came from rare moments of calm in possession in the offensive third; the first saw a clearly unfit Darren Fletcher outmuscle his opponent and slip an intelligent pass to Kenny Miller, whose weak shot squirmed undeneath the foot of Jan Laštůvka and looped into the net. In the second half, Miller returned the favour. Allan McGregor’s long throw found Danny Wilson down the left flank; his ball down the wing towards Miller should have been dealt with by the Czechs, but Miller scampered onto the loose ball, drove into the penalty area and rolled a perfectly weighted pass across the six yard box for Darren Fletcher to coolly roll into the net.

Conversely, the Czech Republic’s two goals arrived due to a lack of due diligence by Scotland. The first equaliser came in the 78th minute when Brown and Naismith conspired to lose possession to the Czechs in their half; they then broke with pace and Scotland passed up several invitations to deal with the danger before Jan Rezek’s cross was deflected past Allan McGregor by Jaroslav Plašil. The second equliser came from the penalty spot after Rezek went down easily under the attentions of the naive Danny Wilson, Michal Kadlec converting.

While Saturday’s performance offered some positives and a whole lot more negatives, Tuesday’s meeting with Lithuania simply served up more of the latter. With Scott Brown and Kenny Miller suspended and Charlie Adam injured, Don Cowie and Barry Bannan came into midfield with Goodwillie replacing Miller as the lone striker. While I had expected the midfield changes to be like-for-like, Scotland instead started with Darren Fletcher in the defensive role…and that’s where everything stopped being clear cut. What was evident was that Bannan and Naismith were playing as inverted wide midfielders, with Don Cowie as a centre-half and James Morrison as something between a right wing-half and a Ponta de Lança. If that sounds like a mess, that’s probably because it was, with the result being Scotland’s midfield looked even more disjointed than it had during the previous game. Bannan looked enthusiastic and inventive, but he couldn’t seem to adjust his passing to compensate for the wet surface. Similarly, Phil Bardsley was determined and incisive in breaking forward from left-back, but on each occasion after getting in behind the Lithuanian defence, he had to cut back inside onto his favoured right foot, removing the gathered momentum.

Scotland eventually took the lead early in the second half when Bannan’s cute chipped pass picked out Naismith whose excellent movement had allowed him to break the Lithuanians’ offside trap and steal unmarked into the area to half-volley past Žydrūnas Karčemarskas. Sadly, that was about the sole highlight of a dreadful game, underlined by Darren Fletcher’s penalty miss shortly before half-time, his power-puff effort easily saved by Karčemarskas and Scotland desperately holding out for their 1-0 against a Lithuanian side featuring players that struggle to get a game for Hearts.

Scotland may have gained four points in the qualifying group and scored three goals in the process, but I think questions remain about where Scotland and Scottish football are going. I have my doubts about Levein’s team-selection, tactics and use of substitutes, while the ongoing terror of Scottish players when presented with a small white globe remains a concern. Our national football team appears to have been ploughing a furrow of negative football for 25 years now, under Roxburgh, Brown et al, to the point where our players don’t know how to do anything else. When we score a goal, our immediate instinct is to retreat to our penalty area and shut up shop, a tactic which might have its merits if it ever worked. Our main offensive approach is to propel the football at 70 miles an hour in the general direction of the one slightly built man we’ve fielded as a striker. We expect him to win the ball, hold off four defenders and bring the midfield into the game, which would be an effective tactic if the midfielders ever ventured beyond the halfway line. What American Football and other soccer teams consider to be a desperate last gasp method of getting the ball towards the opposition’s penalty area, we have adopted as our main strategy from kick off. Bizarre and sickening.

It remains unclear to me whether Scotland’s performance in the last two games is purely down to the way Levein sets out his team, or simply the neglect of the Scottish game in general over the decades. The tactics adopted by Levein (and Ally McCoist for that matter) seem gauche and unsophisticated, but is he not a member of the so-called Largs Mafia, those who earned their coaching badges under the auspices of the SFA on the Firth of Clyde, along with the likes of Jose Mourinho and André Villas-Boas? Of course, they have better players at their disposal, but surely coaches aren’t taught that aimless lumping of the football towards your opponent’s penalty area is a viable tactic?  I also remain to be convinced about the efficacy of inverted wingers, or inverted wide midfielders as we seem to specialise in in Scotland. Fielding a player on the right when they’re left footed and vice versa may work when the players in question are Franck Ribéry and Arjen Robben, direct and out-and-out wingers, but when the players you pick are slower, less direct and more inclined to drift and cut inside, you run the risk of compressing the midfield and removing impetus from attacks.

I do think Scotland have progressed under Levein, although that may be because it was almost impossible to get any worse than we’d been under George Burley. However, there are lessons to be learned about turning our game around in the short-term, and I’m not sure if Levein can or will take these lessons on board. As things stand, a win in Liechtenstein and a point or more against Spain (unlikely, yes) may be enough to see Scotland into the play-offs, so there is still hope.

It’s just a shame that Scotland are at their most deadly when there is hope to be crushed.