When Joe McHugh at VideoCelts posted his article earlier today on the moronic comments made by Sevco full-back Lee Hodson he had to put the club the player played for in brackets after the title, just in case readers had absolutely no idea who he was.
I am going to trust Joe’s work has saved me the trouble. Yes, he’s the full-back you’d never heard of, currently being kept out of the team by James Tavernier, a player of such low renown he probably wasn’t on Google until Sevco were in the market for him last year.
Today he said that his job at Ibrox is difficult because the two best full backs in Scotland are ahead of him in the queue. I laughed reading that. I had to. Because it’s more self-serving guff from someone who otherwise would have to admit he’s being kept out of the side by no-marks. This is the usual arrogance from Ibrox, but this is a of a particularly moronic stripe.
First, there are obviously better full backs at Celtic Park than at Ibrox. Four of them at least, and I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt by not including young Tony Ralston, who there’s an argument for. But Izzy and Gamboa are full internationals of some standing.
We’ve not seen much of the West Brom man yet, but I have no doubt he’ll come good.
Tierney and Lustig ought to go without saying. The youngster from our youth academy is clearly light years ahead of any individual player at Ibrox, regardless of position. He could play anywhere in the UK and there aren’t many foreign clubs where he’d be out of his depth. The suggestion that there are better players than him at Ibrox is almost offence in its stupidity.
But this doesn’t stop there, I’m afraid. Because Hodson is so far off the mark it doesn’t bear thinking about. Let’s think about it anyway, because there are better players outside Glasgow than those who he goes to training with every single day.
Callum Paterson would walk into the Sevco team in front of anyone. Lewis Stevenson and Kevin McNaughton of Inverness would be better options than they have. A 34 year old Stevie Hammell isn’t, to my mind, any worse than the incomprehensibly much praised Lee Wallace and he’s been at Motherwell for over a decade and is in his second spell there. His understudy there is ex Celt Joe Chalmers, who would certainly enhance Sevco’s squad.
Paul Quinn at Ross County would get in their team every week. Paul Paton at St Johnstone would have a good chance. Brian Easton would be a shoe-in, and at Aberdeen neither Shay Logan nor Graeme Shinnie would be stepping aside for any of them.
Young Jack Breslin, the ex-Celtic from Hamilton, would be fighting for a place and even in the Championship David Gray, Neil Eardley and Callum Crane at Hibs would have a shot and so too would Paul Dixon at Dundee Utd.
It must embarrass Sevco fans to know the quality of their squad is this weak. But hearing their players talk this kind of nonsense can’t be making them feel any better. This is the fault of their manager, who’s having a mini-honeymoon right now on the back of two results. Yet they are not a good team, and the more the foolish players in their dressing room draw attention to the fact the more likely it is that other sides are going to figure out that the jerseys may be that of Rangers, that they’ve appropriated the name and play out of the same stadium … but those are lower league footballers of no real standard or quality at all.
And then the beatings will commence with some regularity.