Sevco has won three games in a row.
But be in no doubt, this is a club deep in the shit.
The media are already spinning Murty as the future manager of the club; this was, as you’ll recall, the preferred choice of many in their boardroom. Today, against Ross County, he “masterminded” a 2-1 win after being a goal down.
The job is his until at least January, we’re told … but for a late winner today we all know full well that this guy would be cleaning out his desk. Again.
Murty is not a top flight manager in his life. His record at Ibrox is strictly second rate.
This is another late goal to get him out of jail. The game everyone talks about is the 1-1 draw at Celtic Park, as if they were brilliant that day. When he brings this rag-bag mob to our home for the New Year fixture we’ll see how long the euphoria lasts.
Sevco’s behaviour is so disjointed you could almost feel sorry for some of the people inside the walls there. Caixinha survived the Motherwell game. He was sacked after a draw against Dundee. What makes that incredible is that sixty seconds separated him from safety that night. Sevco missed a penalty which would have put the game to bed and the away team rushed up the park and got a late goal. Had the penalty gone in, he would still have a job.
Likewise, some on the Ibrox board were determined that Murty should have it, all the better since he was willing to work cheap; according to Keevins today, he is still working on his reserve coach salary and will be for the foreseeable future. This is scandalous, but not unexpected. They are ready to jettison him again at the first sign of jitters.
He was flying, and stood a good chance of getting the gig, until the reversals against Motherwell and Dundee. Then the club panicked and he was told he was going. Had they drawn or lost today the pressure on their club would have propelled them towards a quickie appointment, probably one of those unemployed bosses whose reputations they scotched the other day in that deplorable statement. The win buys him time, but not much.
There’s no way they will get through to January with this team, playing as they are. They fielded Pena today, for the whole of the first half. They are forced to start this guy because of his price tag and salary; there’s simply no other reason for having him on the park. The word “useless” flatters him. That signing is a joke, like so much else that happens there.
Today Stuart Milne spoke to the media about the McInnes situation. There was some suggestion that they might like to get Mark Allen in front of their microphones, although I wonder if they would have asked him a single hard question. But it was waved away by one correspondent who said he’d already given a lengthy interview to the club’s own media channel … which serious journalist would accept such nonsense? What’s more, the interview is weeks old … it doesn’t touch on this situation or on the wider plan for the club.
But even the hacks couldn’t deny that Milne has shown leadership with those at Ibrox have none. The codebreakers in the press have made their one sterling contribution to the farce; they’ve uncovered the shocking truth about the Sevco statement; that Dave King used the word concomitant in a speech earlier in the year, and therefore probably had a hand in writing it.
So what? Big deal?
We assume that he okayed it, so what does it matter who wrote it?
Can we assume Traynor didn’t anyway? It wouldn’t be the first time that Level 5’s Fat Controller had heard a big word and decided he liked it. The same statement called Sevco a “massive club.” For everyone who looked up concomitant there was another who went to the dictionary to find out if the definition of massive had changed overnight.
King is an absentee chairman, hiding in South Africa. Any club chairman who finds the time to write a statement like that, attacking another club, and sounding like a jilted lover, has the wrong set of priorities. Do you think our chairman would have penned such a poisonous or self-destructive missive? I think not. No-one at Celtic would.
Six weeks without a manager. Bookies are already paying on those who bet that Murty would be the permanent boss; usually a manager needs to get to ten games before they do that, but the gambling industry knows Sevco is incompetent now and that they will struggle to find someone. They are also skint, which limits the options further.
Their fans are furious at the idea of Murty getting the job on a permanent basis, but they had better get good with the idea. They play Hibs in midweek; I don’t actually expect them to win that match. If they don’t their fans will flap and raise Hell but what other choice do they have? Their position is dire. The boardroom group which believes he’s The Man feels vindicated for these three wins on the bounce, although two were against a team in disarray.
Sevco is a ship floating towards the rocks. It has no captain. The crew are down in the hold drinking and those who aren’t oblivious as to what’s happening are now too drunk to care. The passengers are screaming, running amuck, but no-one, anywhere, is taking charge and trying to right the course.
They believe they can muddle through Xmas and into New Year like this, but they were living on their nerves today and that’s how it’ll be all the way.