Sevco flew to and back from last night’s game on a budget airline, and once there turned in a budget football club performance. The media is delirious over a second consecutive away match shut-out, and I can understand why, but as usual they are getting carried away.
Sevco’s opponents last night can hardly be categorised as a major club.
Yet although they were missing key players, they would have had enough to win at home, and perhaps comfortably, had they possessed just one finisher of note.
Had we been able to loan them Forrest or McGregor for the night, far less the majestic talents of a Ntcham, Edouard, Dembele or Griffiths, they would have beaten Sevco like a badly behaved dog on a redneck farm.
And speaking of redneck farms, the whole evening stank of amateur hour when it wasn’t reeking of the gutter.
On the pitch, Sevco looked pitifully inept, spending most of the game camped inside their own half.
Their PR was a disaster.
They spent the 90 minutes running about in training tops which bore no resemblance to the three shirt designs they submitted for the season.
Shorn of sponsors names, they looked like off-the-peg tat … and some of the excuses being offered for this are ludicrously weak, such as that there is a ban on betting advertising in Croatia … that’s true of most UEFA countries, but Celtic makes do with an actual first team kit without a sponsor’s name on it. Why didn’t they do the same? Can it really be because they don’t want to spend money on alternative kit sets for their players? And did they submit that shoddy outfit to the governing bodies in advance?
Sevco’s SLO claims it is a “fourth kit” but that explanation sounds pretty poor to me.
They heralded their three shirt designs to great fanfare … this is the first mention of a fourth. The obvious question would be to ask if it will ever go on sale, or see the light of day again, but don’t bet on it. As they’re still not able to sell the first three you have to doubt it.
On top of that, the bizarre sight of that was compounded by Sevco’s failure to even offer their opponents a commemorative pennant. Watch the start of the game; the home side managed to obtain one, and handed it over … only to get nothing back.
That is not even second rate; there are clubs in the junior leagues who can better that. We would never have gotten away with that; the media this morning would be all over it. It is so sloppy it takes your breath away.
Small stuff, yes, but it’s the small stuff that points to far bigger problems behind the scenes. This is a club that cannot get its act together in any way, shape or form.
Nor can it control its supporters, who treated the TV audience to several lusty rendition of the kind of sectarian filth that had Rangers sanctioned time and time again. They just aren’t getting it, this lot, and when the inevitable UEFA investigations are opened the club will bleat about how it has done everything it can to combat this stuff … yes, short of actually trying to. UEFA will not be as lenient, or as lax, as the SFA.
Will we get any comment or condemnation from Show Racism The Red Card Scotland?
I would not hold my breath waiting for that. That organisation has not an ounce of credibility left and frankly I would happily never mention them on this site again, but it has to be asked if they ever intend speaking out against the routine bile from the Ibrox “faithful.” I’m not talking here about the odd muppet on a European adventure … I’m talking about the stuff that pours out of their stands every single week, without fail.
The media seems to think they had some kind of great night.
This is the narrative every single one of their wins will generate for the whole of the season. It was the same with Warburton, Caixinha and Murty; every victory was a turning point, the proof that they were “on the right track.”
I saw nothing to concern me last night … but plenty that had me sniggering.