Today Sevco turned in an appalling display at Dingwall, characterised by dreadful football and a level of tactical ineptness that would have had the media howling for a Celtic manager’s head on a pike. It was that bad. I watched it, the second half in particular, in disbelief.
The euphoria of winning a couple of games on the bounce is gone, revealed for the idiotic hubris it was.
Reality hit them again. They really are this bad.
Sevco fans do not like hearing this, but it bears repeating over and over again; their players are sub-standard and their manager is an imposter. The Magic Hat ought to be replaced with a ski-mask because if they are paying him big money for these kind of days he is robbing them.
There’s simply nothing there; I cannot accentuate that enough.
Sevco scored early, from a set piece. They conceded from one. Both sides defended abysmally in the early part. The thing is, Ross County’s defending improved. Sevco were still being scythed open in the closing stages of the match. They were lucky to get through injury time without conceding a second. By then their fans wouldn’t have been kidding themselves about deserving more than a point; had they lost that they would have had no complaints.
But it was their front line which will have given their fans cause for real, real concern and given Dave King more food for thought than he’ll be comfortable with. Their three man forward line huffed and puffed throughout. Warburton subbed them all, to zero impact. They registered not one single shot on target in a turgid second half where a more tactical manager – and Brendan is already proving himself the best in the game up here – would have been creative. Warburton made three like for like changes against a packed defence.
At what point does it dawn on a manager who watches a game like this that it’s the approach that’s failing and not just the personnel? This drove me nuts about Deila, he would do this again and again and again. No wonder teams found us predictable and easy to defend against.
No wonder we endured days like today, far too many of them.
Lately, the media has taken to comparing the two.
I argued last month how unfair that is, considering Ronny’s achievements.
Today there’s a far more apt comparison; Warburton and Ally McCoist.
I never understood the hype over this guy, but I now think his presence in the dressing room may actually endanger the club in the way McCoist helped to shatter Rangers when his ineptness in the dugout saw them exit Europe twice in a month, costing the club millions.
The new club has suggested that their future policies will be based on securing European football; it’s clearly not taken to heart the lessons of its predecessor. Warburton will be fired should he fail to secure qualification, but there now has to be a serious question over whether to allow him large sums of money and expect him to lead them to Group Stages.
That would be dicing with death.
This guy is simply not cut out for being a football boss at that level. He won plaudits at Brentford; that is his measure, right there, and with enough hype around him – although who it’s going to come from I simply don’t know – he can find himself a nice wee club there where expectations are low and have a reasonable managerial career. McCoist has never found another club after the choas he presided over at Rangers and then Sevco … Warburton might be luckier.
But he was useless today. Useless.
And he gets no scrutiny from the press. Neither did “Coisty”, the media’s favourite boss. Ronny Deila was filleted for these kind of decisions, these kind of performances, these kind of results. When you have six front men to choose from – all more highly paid and lauded than any of the opposition – you have no excuse for these kind of displays.
Highly paid managers should be about more than just “hoof it and run”.
They should be about more than just like for like changes, and the hope for a lucky break.
I cannot say this enough times; Warburton does not have the skill to manage a major club, which Sevco believes that it is, right or wrong.
It can only be a matter of time before King and his board dispense with his services.