This article was written yesterday afternoon, and last night, as I was going to bed, I read one which said some of the same things.
To my surprise, it was in a mainstream outlet, The Herald, which I’ve much criticised this week for a variety of sins, including Matthew Lindsay’s absurd article of yesterday which sought to credit the crisis at Ibrox as having given us our own success.
Last night’s piece was much more rational, and deserving of praise.
It was written by James Morgan, the deputy sports editor, and he appears to be one of the very few in the pressrooms who has not been drinking the Kenny Miller Kool Aid.
Entitled “Pedro Caixinha hung out to dry after Kenny Miller leads Scots’ mutiny”, it is a stinging rebuke to all of the nonsense gushing out of other media orifices this morning.
As if you could possibly be unaware, Miller is the big hero over at Ibrox today.
He returned to the team yesterday and scored twice, and he did it whilst wearing the captain’s armband. A nice reward for someone who destabilised his own dressing room, who set one part of it against the other and who played a very active role in the process that led to the dismissal of the manager.
Only at Sevco could that result in his own elevation.
And there’s a lesson here for any future boss who comes in; some players over there are larger than life, and the thing about rebellion and insurrection is that it’s got addictive qualities, much like blood has to a vampire, if we may lurch into Pedro Land again for a moment.
It gets into you. It becomes a habit, and it’s a tough one to break.
Miller now knows he has powerful allies at the top of the club.
He also has a large number of sycophantic mates in the media.
What happens if he isn’t terribly impressed by the next manager who comes in? For openers, the club has already limited itself with this “hire British” nonsense; what if even that’s not enough and the next guy has ideas about diet and training and tactics which Miller doesn’t enjoy?
The message from the boardroom is already pretty clear; Miller will not be punished. Indeed, he’ll be given treats and sent out to do tricks on the pitch. It is lunacy, but it’s a kind of lunacy peculiar to that place and will have a predictable end.
From the moment the next boss walks through the doors and into that dressing room, he better be on his guard. It’s a well known fact that Miller wants the top job for himself, and now that he’s had a wee taste of sedition – and successful sedition at that – it will be a matter of time before he inserts himself as a dressing room leader and starts to make his own “suggestions.”
And if he’s not cut down to size, that problem will grow and grow.
