Andrew Smith and Mark Atkinson discuss Sunday's Premiership matches at Ibrox, Pittodrie and Tynecastle.
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00:00 Hello and welcome to this episode of the Scotsman Football Show. My name is Mark Atkinson and
00:09 I'm joined today by one of our chief football writers, Andrew Smith, to have a look back
00:13 at a busy weekend of Scottish Premiership football. Andrew, how are you doing?
00:17 Good, yourself?
00:18 Yeah, very well, very well. Glorious day of football yesterday in the sunshine. Let's
00:23 start with a big one. You were at Ibrox for what was a monumental match between Rangers
00:29 and Celtic. Celtic winning 1-0, Kew will score just before half-time, the only goal of the
00:34 match. What were your thoughts on what took place at Ibrox?
00:38 I have to say, along with everyone else, for me it was wholly unexpected. If you thought
00:44 Celtic could win, what you thought they could not do was keep a clean sheet with a largely
00:51 untried centre-back line. By the end of the 90 minutes, they had an entire second choice
00:59 back four. So for Rangers not to penetrate their defences on a day like that has created
01:08 a monumental - you said it was a monumental win - but it's created a monumental number
01:14 of questions for Michael Beale. Because his team, as I've said online on the Scotsman
01:22 website, they do lack an identity, they lack a playing style and they also now lack the
01:33 support of their fan base, particularly the manager. But even when Neil McCann touched
01:42 upon it on the radio, when Dessars wasn't taken off, they took off Roof. I mean the
01:46 howls of derision that swept across Ibrox, which is terrible for the manager, it's also
01:53 terrible for the player. I do feel for Dessars, he's certainly an honest trier. I was actually
01:59 just speaking to someone before we came on here who had watched them at Feyenoord and
02:03 asking my friend, Leke, what's happened to them? Because when he was at Feyenoord, he
02:07 was top scorer in the Conference League, I think, when they reached the final. And this
02:13 guy can't understand why Dessars and Danilo aren't making a bigger impact at Rangers.
02:20 Well Danilo's not even getting the chance to have an impact and we'll touch on that
02:24 in a second. I want to go back to what you said about Michael Beale. In your main piece
02:29 you talked about it being a chow-chestry moment for Beale at Ibrox. And I mean certainly when
02:36 a crowd turns like that, it's often very difficult for a manager to recover the situation. It's
02:41 not impossible, but that defeat was so damaging for Michael Beale's rebuild, for his new generation
02:49 of Rangers. They won their last derby at Ibrox, remember, quite convincingly. So there was
02:54 a real feel-good factor going into this season. Do you feel that he's going to get enough
03:00 support, not from the board, because we know the board are quite behind them, but from
03:04 the fans, to turn this round?
03:08 Only if he... I mean when you look at it, really what he has to do is almost be faultless
03:14 for the next two months. To win every game. I mean it's a non-negotiable. He must win
03:21 the League Cup with no Celtic in his path because it was only Celtic, let's remember,
03:26 that put his Rangers out of the two Cups last season. So he had almost that well. It was
03:34 like Celtic that we came up against. They can't come up against Celtic now. So there's
03:38 no way they can lose to anyone else. That Cup must be in the Rangers' trophy cabinet
03:43 by December 17th. And I think barring an absolute collapse, the board will want to give him,
03:51 at least up to that point. But he has to... We've talked about this before, about managers
03:57 not being given time, but they must earn themselves time. It's a two-way street that we always...
04:03 And I've been guilty of in the past, "Ah, you need to give him more time." Well, he
04:06 has to justify being given the time. And Biel now must be justified for giving the time.
04:11 What hangs over him is the fact that Van Bronckhorst, after leading Rangers to a European final
04:18 and winning the Scottish Cup, was only given until the end of November because he lost
04:25 two league games. And I think Drew was at four more or something. I mean, they weren't
04:29 in good form. We accept that. But he also got them in the Champions League. So he's
04:36 both ahead of Biel in Europe so far by beating PSV to get them in the Champions League, which
04:44 Biel singularly failed to do last week. And he's also ahead of Biel in the sense that
04:49 he didn't lose two of his first four league games. Now, I was looking, you need to go
04:54 back a long way to find the last time Rangers lost two of their first four league games
04:59 in a top flight campaign. It's not happened since they were promoted in '16/'17. They've
05:07 not lost two of their first four. I mean, I think there was one season where they drew
05:12 two and lost one in 1-1. I think that was actually Gerrard's first season, so Biel was
05:18 there as well. But actually two defeats, two such damaging defeats. You're opening day
05:23 defeat and you're opening derby day defeat when you feel as if your rivals are on their
05:30 uppers. They are there for the taking. That's what really melted the heads of the Rangers
05:37 supporters inside Ibrox because they were all saying online that this is the weakest
05:42 Celtic team we've seen in years. And still, they come away with a win.
05:51 We always talk about how often the fortunes of Rangers and Celtic are linked together.
06:03 Both teams have actually signed quite a lot of players. We all talk about Rangers' rebuild
06:07 because there's been more noise about it, but Celtic have also had to go through a rebuild.
06:11 Both teams are in a state of flux in terms of gelling together. Both Celtic have got
06:16 injury concerns, obviously. But it feels like Rangers' Michael Biel hasn't been able to
06:22 mesh these nine signings together properly. He's never settled on a strike force each
06:29 week. He's always changing that up. I think it would be fair to say the only real signing
06:33 that has really settled in well is goalkeeper Jack Butland. He deserves immense credit for
06:38 getting Jack Butland into the club. But is Biel going to fall here on the money and the
06:44 number of strikers he's brought in and not getting a tune out of Serial Decessors, Danilo,
06:51 Sam Lammers, Abdallah Seema? Surely he now needs to find a settled strike force and get
06:58 these guys firing.
06:59 It was a curious play in mitigation that he spat out yesterday at the post-match press
07:07 conference. You guys are miles out with how much I say we've spent. We've spent £13 million
07:13 on nine players when I think most outlets have suggested it may have been £14 million.
07:19 So it's hardly miles out. Even spending £13 million, he's not getting value out of the
07:27 £13 million which he essentially spent on four players. We think Danilo, roughly £5
07:33 million, Decessors £3 million, Lammers £3 million and Sufentes £2 million. Is that
07:42 what we're saying?
07:43 Yeah, roughly. I think they're saying there's been a net spend of roughly £5-6 million
07:50 when you bring in the sales of Glen Kamara, Fashion Sakala and Antonio Chulak. But it
07:57 still is a good outlet for Rangers, isn't it? He's gone top heavy, hasn't he, Andrew?
08:01 We were talking about the strikers here and how he needs to get them going, but has he
08:05 signed too many strikers and neglected the defence?
08:09 I was of the opinion, see if the signing spree on forwards had been in a different order.
08:20 Say he'd got Danilo at the very start of the window, would he have really signed Lammers
08:25 and Decessors? I wonder, Ansema, I kind of think that he was signing guys that he could
08:33 get a hold of at that time. Obviously when you're spending a lot of money and it's not
08:38 a player that the selling club are really desperate to move on, it takes longer. So
08:43 therefore Danilo was at the end. But Danilo was supposed to be the 'piesta resista' on
08:47 Chiron, he was supposed to be the real game changer for them. And yet we've hardly seen
08:52 him. He was supposed to have had a pre-season, supposed to have been ready to go. And it
08:59 seemed to be that that missed a way to serve it, which Michael Bale has referenced a couple
09:04 of times since. I don't know if that had Bale thinking, 'Is this the guy I thought I'd signed?'
09:10 I actually thought he did well when he came on yesterday. He drew two saves from Hart,
09:15 it was a neat little turn in the box he had when he set up that and it was a really good
09:21 save. So he could have got Rangers back into the game. Surely it's time to give a go at
09:27 playing Danilo through the middle.
09:29 Yep, I think that's fair. Their next game is Johnstone away, is that right?
09:34 Johnstone away and then they've got Bettis at home. And then I think four out of their
09:40 five games to follow are at home. So you would think to yourself, one of them is against
09:45 Motherwell, none of them are... There's no gimmies it seems to be. I think that's what's
09:49 going to change this year. There doesn't seem to be the same gimmies for Celtic and Rangers.
09:54 Not right now anyway, playing the rest of the division.
09:59 When you think about it, I was just going to say when I wrote a piece about when Rangers
10:07 won the Scottish Cup, and that day they won the Scottish Cup, it was exactly six months
10:13 since either Celtic or Rangers had been beaten by any other Scottish opponent. That feels
10:18 like a long time ago now and it's talking 18 months.
10:23 Yeah, the league, people often, you'll see it on social media, comments about the league
10:28 being awful or poor or the standard of play being poor. I don't think, I think that's
10:32 unfair. It's unique in its own right. And I think the Scottish team is the kind of maybe
10:37 third tier of the Scottish Premiership. Your Motherwells and your Kilmarnocks, St Mirrens,
10:42 they have improved this season.
10:43 They have improved.
10:44 More than half.
10:45 Yeah, there's not the soft underbelly, I think. And even St Johnstone, I know that might have
10:52 been a kind of misfiring Celtic, but St Johnstone went to Celtic Park and got a draw. It took
10:59 17 games, I think, last season for Celtic to drop a point at home. So I think the league
11:06 actually has improved. And although people want to see it with the kind of bashing because
11:11 of what happened in Europe last week, the very fact we had four teams in the play-off
11:20 stage, that was, they were there to get battered. But the fact they were there was an indication
11:28 that they'd improved, that there'd been a slight step up because we weren't seeing them
11:33 overcoming teams in the stage before. How regularly were Scottish teams not getting
11:38 to play-offs?
11:39 Yeah, I think that it's unfortunate when you get to the play-offs, you're up against teams
11:45 that are potentially one, two or even three levels up when you look at Aston Villa against
11:50 Ipswich. But you have to be there first and there has been an improvement on that regard.
11:55 We've spoken a lot about Rangers and I feel we should talk about Celtic because ultimately
12:00 they went to Ibrox with their own problems, not least at the back. They had, as you said,
12:04 they had a completely second choice defence by the end of the 19 minutes. Brendan Rodgers
12:10 was under a little bit of heat from his own fans. He kind of referenced that in his post-match
12:14 press conference. How big a win is this for him and his players, given the supposed issues
12:22 at Celtic Park throughout August?
12:26 It's like, you know, like a valve in a pressure cooker being flipped open, isn't it? All that
12:33 pressure's released because they'll be living off this for the next two weeks. Of course,
12:40 if they come back at a moment, of course, if they then lost their drud and D, then it's
12:46 all back in the mix again. But you can see that it really can, you almost talked about
12:55 them playing like, I don't like using that, I hate that, playing like men, but really
13:01 playing like mature, like showing a maturity. They did show a maturity that was unexpected
13:07 from guys like Scales, let's be honest about it. And we've seen guys like O'Reilly disappearing
13:15 in some of these games. We've seen Obada, they all played their part. There was guys
13:20 there that Maida looked back on it and he's been a real kind of, the last season's Maida,
13:27 the fact he hasn't shown up this season, that's been a real down for Celtic. So all these
13:32 guys seem to kind of grow from, they grew within the game and then they'll grow from
13:38 the game, I believe. And the difference we talk about, oh, Celtic are hardly playing
13:44 any of their summer signings. That's because these guys have got, the guys who are in the
13:51 team are well established and are kind of, they have proved themselves. It's harder for
13:59 a Yang to dislodge an Obada or a Maida because these guys have got a pedigree in terms of
14:07 what they've produced for Celtic. So, and even in the flashes, a guy like Yang in home,
14:14 they've looked, there's been encouragement to take from there. Unlike when Rangers, the
14:20 reason why Rangers forward line and such keeps changing is because it's not working. Whereas
14:26 Celtic have got guys who are working, but maybe these other guys will come into play.
14:30 And that's the difference in terms of the signings and how they will be integrated.
14:38 Is it easier when you're a new signing to come in at a position of strength? Because
14:42 all these Rangers players have come into Ibrox at a position of weakness to the club in that
14:47 they're a team of Celtic and there's more pressure for them to hit the ground running.
14:51 With Celtic, you've got people, the whole spine of that team is there. Okay, Cameron
14:55 Carter-Vickers is injured right now, but if you look at Hart, the vice captain, Carter-Vickers,
15:00 the best defender in the league, Cal McGregor, who was outstanding yesterday, Matt O'Reilly
15:05 now really maturing into a man of a player to use that expression. And then you've got
15:10 Kyoko. So it must make it easier for these new players to come in when they've got that
15:16 around them.
15:17 It has to. That's what, and I think with some justification, that's what Michael Beale
15:21 has referenced again a few times, the fact that he's having to create an entire new front
15:29 third. Even with, if you're using Matondo and Roof, they're still new in the sense of,
15:37 because they weren't really involved much last season. So they're really guys that are
15:42 kind of getting newly integrated, if you like. So this kind of front five, front four, even
15:49 a front six sometimes in terms of the way that you might play it. He's having to create
15:54 that from a standing start. It is difficult. It is really difficult for him. It is really
16:00 difficult for him. And I do feel for him. But you would still expect it. You know, he's
16:07 now played, is it eight games? Eight games? No, nine games. Nine games in. You would expect
16:13 to see some kind of pattern developed or relationships beginning to develop. We're seeing neither.
16:21 Yeah. And you're seeing players drop out of the team. Jose Cifuentes, who he himself talked
16:26 up big time, even before he'd signed on the dotted line as a player that was going to
16:30 be big for Rangers. He hasn't played, didn't play in the first derby. I don't know what
16:37 that says about Cifuentes. I think it's an indictment on where he is right now. And as
16:41 we talked about Danilo, the money they've spent. So it's going to be a big couple of
16:45 weeks for Michael Beale in terms of a bit of soul searching around Ockenhowe. You would
16:50 guess. And as you say, he's going to try and get his best 11 on the pitch and the pressure
16:57 really is on. We could talk about Rangers and Celtic all day. There's loads to discuss.
17:01 But I do want to touch upon the other games that took place yesterday because they actually
17:06 have quite a few ramifications, I think, on what may happen at some of the clubs. Let's
17:12 talk about the game at Potaudri, Aberdeen against Hemps. Hemps winning 2-0. A bit of
17:17 a surprise result for a lot of people, given that Hemps were bottom of the league and managerless.
17:22 And they obviously capitalised on an Aberdeen team that was tired following their game against
17:28 Hacken. Aberdeen are winless in the Premiership at the moment. And actually, they've not done
17:33 particularly well since Bayer Robson was appointed on a full-time basis. He's only won one of
17:37 his league matches since he was given the job on a permanent basis. Should Aberdeen
17:43 fans be worried at all, Andrew?
17:46 I think there seemed to be an early seasons feel-good factor at Potaudri that was maybe
17:53 based on the fact that I think they spent over £2 million. I think it's 10 new arrivals.
17:58 I know three of them are on loan. So everybody thought they've thrown everyone at it. He's
18:06 been supported, as few Aberdeen managers have in recent times. I wonder how envious Derek
18:12 McInnes looks on when he sees what's happening at Aberdeen, because I think he was forced
18:19 to work with far narrower parameters with everything that was happening in Scottish
18:24 football at that time and what he did with it. But that feel-good factor has just completely
18:31 fizzled out now. We talk about Bale, but is Barry Robson, is he even Bale-like issues?
18:41 Well, we've spoken about this before, Andrew. A lot of teams have signed a lot of players
18:45 over the summer. It does take time to tell them, but the number of players Aberdeen have
18:50 brought in, and there's been no continuity in selection either in that Aberdeen team.
18:56 That clearly is impacting upon them. I wondered, are expectation levels now at Aberdeen, have
19:04 they skyrocketed, given where they were under Jim Goodwin in January, to a level that's
19:09 almost impossible to attain?
19:12 Actually, when you look at the league table, they are at the Jim Goodwin level. I know
19:17 it's only four games, but they actually are. That was really damaging. I know they say
19:25 they put everything into hacking, but as we know, the Hibs were down in Birmingham, they
19:32 had been given the run around. That wasn't an excuse that really washed. As you say,
19:37 managerless, pointless. I don't think the Hibs are that league point. So, managerless
19:44 and pointless, you can't lose at home. It was a pretty sorry fashion, it seemed to be
19:49 as well. As the game wore on, it seemed to be that it was Hibs that looked the stronger,
19:55 and that showed itself.
19:58 Yes, Hibs grew into it. I think Aberdeen's issue seems to be that players that were really
20:04 performing last year, Duke in particular, they've not brought that level back to this
20:08 season. Leighton Clarkson was left on the bench, which I think raised a lot of eyebrows
20:13 for Aberdeen fans, given that he's been their best midfielder this season. Defensively,
20:18 they brought in Richard Jenson, obviously Angus MacDonald's just back from injury himself.
20:25 Aberdeen last season under Robson were built on defensive stability. They were really hard
20:31 to score against. Good goalkeeper in Keller Roos and that MacDonald partnership with Matty
20:36 Pollock, who's no longer there. They didn't seem to have that yesterday, Aberdeen. The
20:42 fragility, just come back in and you look at the games they've played this season, they've
20:47 conceded goals against St Mirren, they've conceded goals against Hibs, they lost three
20:51 against Celtic, there's nothing wrong with that, but they also couldn't break down Livingstone.
20:55 So, yeah, there's work to be done at Aberdeen, there's no question about it. There's also
21:00 work to be done at Hibs, isn't there, Andrew? We're hearing that Nick Montgomery is the
21:06 now likely candidate for the job. Reports coming out of Australia suggesting that Hibs
21:10 are closing in on him. David Gray did himself no harm as caretaker manager.
21:17 Was that only for the third time? Is that only the third time he's been caretaker?
21:21 Yeah, David Gray, it seems to be his magic trick, isn't it, being the caretaker. Let's
21:31 be honest here, Andrew, we know there's good players at Hibs, don't we?
21:33 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:34 That's a good team there.
21:36 There is, and I suppose ultimately what it did for Johnston is that you think Hibs are
21:43 more than the sum of their parts. For a manager, a manager always has to create a team that
21:50 looks more than the sum of its parts, but Johnston seemed to have a team that wasn't
21:56 equal to the sum of its parts, and that's what so often leads to the downfall of managers.
22:05 If you think the players are better than they're showing, then that's when all the
22:09 heat comes on the manager.
22:10 You talk about Aberdeen's investment, but Hibs spent nearly a million pounds on a striker
22:15 in Dylan Vente, so they have backed their manager hugely in terms of bringing players
22:21 in. They obviously have made that change, and Hibs looked a bit more like a Scottish
22:29 team yesterday. They actually had a bit more resilience about them, which we haven't seen
22:33 from Hibs for a while. It'll be interesting if it is indeed Nick Montgomery, who apparently
22:38 is an excellent coach. This is a guy that has turned Jason Cummings into a World Cup
22:42 striker. That must be as credentialed as a coach.
22:46 Is there a faddish element at all, though, the fact that Australia, like you go to Australia
22:55 for a manager, who does that sound like?
22:59 Well, you're right, there's definitely faddish going to Australia. You just look at the influx
23:05 of players. At Hearts and Hibs, there are a couple of players who played under Montgomery,
23:10 Kai Rowles and Lewis Miller at the Mariners. I think James McGarry as well at Aberdeen
23:16 played for the Mariners. So it has become fashionable to not just take players, but
23:21 now take coaches from there. I think part of it, Andrew, has got to be that there's
23:26 no standout candidate domestically. We've all argued about Neil Lennon and Derek McInnes
23:32 and Stephen Robinson, Malcolm McKay, and ultimately no one really can really separate them. So
23:37 I think when you're a board looking at candidates in your own country, you maybe are forced
23:41 to look outside the box. And Montgomery at 41, 42 years old, did a good job there. They
23:48 may well see him as the best one.
23:52 They all like an element of left field. It's funny how certain instincts or certain processes
24:00 seem to outlive even board structures. Hibs always, even you go back to Tony Mulberry,
24:07 they've always loved pulling a rabbit out of a hat when it comes to the manager. I mean,
24:10 Tony Mulberry walked in that evening, Deeser Road, and nobody knew that he'd been given
24:16 the job. How often have they done that subsequently?
24:22 Yeah, there's a maverick nature about them. This board also has a slightly left field
24:30 look about it, owned by Americans or American based business people. And most of the hierarchy
24:38 are not from Scotland. The chief executive is from Gillingham and the sporting director
24:42 is a former Reading manager. So there's obviously, they like to be different. And you're right,
24:49 Hibs have got that kind of slightly curious nature about them.
24:53 Does this mean yet another player churn come the next window?
25:00 Well, I mean, that's dizzying, the player churn, both at Aberdeen and Hibs has been
25:07 dizzying in the last two or three years, has it not? I've been intrigued to know how many
25:12 players they've actually signed. It must be 30.
25:18 This new Hibs regime, since Ron Gordon has come in, you're right, there's been an enormous
25:22 player churn. You would like to think that if there was to be a churn at Hibs, it's probably
25:27 more likely to be in defence, because they seem to have got their midfield and forward
25:32 line quite well stocked. But every new manager that comes into a club wants to bring in their
25:38 own players. And that, I suppose, is the nature of the beast when you sack a manager, isn't it?
25:42 Yeah.
25:42 You know, when you sack a manager, when you bring somebody in, they're going to want to
25:46 bring their, to put their stamp on it. And Montgomery might have players in Australia
25:51 that he wants to bring over.
25:52 That's what you'd imagine. So you'd imagine, and that's probably what Hibs are looking for.
25:56 They're looking for the Posta-Coglou effect in more ways than one. Because Posta-Coglou
26:02 knew two or three players that he was absolutely convinced would come over and really cut it.
26:09 And they'll be thinking, because it's a, the market is like, it's a more modest market,
26:14 the Australian market. So they'll be thinking that he'll have two or three, maybe a left back
26:19 and centre back, dare we say it, that he'll know that can come in here and really look at,
26:23 bring improvement to that Hibs back line.
26:27 We like to think so. Let's go to the other side of Edinburgh. Final game that was played yesterday.
26:33 And Hearts seem to be in a little bit of bother at the moment. A 1-0 defeat at home to Motherwell.
26:39 They also had European football. They were in Greece. I'd say that was probably the
26:43 most arduous of the three teams going over to the heat of Thessaloniki and being given
26:47 the run around there. But Hearts fans are not happy. There were boos at full time.
26:51 If you go to social media, you'll see plenty of prominent Hearts fans really unhappy with
26:55 the current regime. They're only a point ahead of Hibs. They're up to four points. They had a pretty
27:01 favourable set of fixtures on paper to start things off. And there's now this confusion
27:07 about the managerial situation. Both Frank McIlroy, who is currently manager, and Stephen
27:12 Naismith, who is currently the technical director, have hinted that the roles might be reversed this
27:17 week and Naismith might go back to being manager. How does the Hearts situation look to you, Andrew?
27:21 I mean, it stimulates a lot of blether on the radio. They're saying it's a shambles and such.
27:31 But let's be honest about it. We've all been tipped the wink that this was all to do. We all
27:37 knew that. If we all knew that on the outside, Naismith can't be named as manager because he
27:42 doesn't have the APRO licence. But as soon as they were out of Europe, it would revert back to
27:48 he would be becoming the head coach, if you like, instead of the technical director. If we all know
27:54 that, surely the players all know that. So surely it's not so confusing within the corridors. If
28:03 it's not that confusing to us outside, I mean, we can make Mary out of it and we can try to suggest
28:08 this is a shambles and what the hell's happening. But we know what's happening. Do we know? Am I
28:14 being unfair? No, no, I think, yeah, it's pretty clear that this is all, it's like an aircraft
28:21 waiting to land and it's stuck in a holding pattern. And then eventually they get the green
28:24 light, which comes from going out of Europe and they can switch over to what they want to do.
28:29 The question I would ask though, is that if indeed Naismith is still calling the shots,
28:33 then is he under pressure? Because Hearts fans are not happy with the brand of football they're
28:40 playing, not happy with some of the recruits and changing the names above the door is not
28:46 going to appease them in any real way. Regardless of who is in charge at Hearts, this coaching team
28:56 of McAvoy, Naismith and Forrest, they're under pressure now because Hearts are underperformed
29:03 last season and they're underperforming again. Let's be honest, have you heard anybody or read
29:13 anybody online slaughtering McAvoy? They even know that he's not the power behind the throne here.
29:25 Sorry, that was going to be unfair. I don't mean he's a stooge, but you're talking about a holding
29:30 pattern. He's a holding manager or whatever. So they know that the work doesn't stop with him
29:38 because he's not the guy that fingers are getting pointed at. It is Naismith. Everybody recognises
29:43 it's Naismith has to carry the can. Naismith has to take it on his shoulders,
29:48 a bit of Hearts aren't playing well. And I saw that he did the post-match
29:54 last night. He wasn't very convincing, I have to say, about Hearts wanting to be a big club,
30:01 but they have to recognise you have to play midweek, Thursday, Sunday or whatever.
30:07 And it's like, you're out of Europe, what's that got to do with the price of cheese? You just move
30:13 on and say, we've got to be better in all departments. It was a strange game. I thought
30:20 some of Motherwell's football was terrific, but also I thought Hearts had plenty. In another day,
30:27 they would have scored one or two goals. They had good opportunities. Shankland,
30:32 they carved out good opportunities. They weren't entirely insipid. But you should never be that in
30:42 front of their own support when it's almost a sold out, like Tyne Castle. Hearts are a more difficult
30:52 team to judge right now, possibly even than Hibs and Aberdeen. They haven't, as we've recognised,
30:59 they haven't had quite the same turnover of players. But it's moulding the ones that they have.
31:07 Let's be honest about it, this is a Hearts that has been erratic for the best part of a year now.
31:13 That's why they lost their last manager. That's why their last manager was jettisoned.
31:17 Yeah, there's a, does feel like there are deficiencies in that squad across all parts of it.
31:27 They've not been able to settle on a starting team either. The big problem for them is that
31:32 when they play Aberdeen next, I mean, how big a match is that? Two from London and two managers
31:39 who are under quite a lot of pressure. It's certainly amazing to see how, if Stephen Naismith
31:46 can win over some of these Hearts fans who, when Robbie Nielsen was sacked, they were expecting an
31:52 upgrade. And ultimately, Stephen Naismith has been promoted from within when he was looking after
31:56 the Lowen League team and hasn't really changed fortunes for the better. So, yeah, a manager that
32:04 could come under even more pressure in the next couple of weeks. We're already out of time, but
32:08 before I go, we've talked about, we've talked about Hearts there and you mentioned how good Motherwell
32:13 were yesterday, what a start to the season they've had. Are people overlooking Stuart Kettlewell?
32:18 I mean, everyone's talked about the other domestic managers, but what a job he is doing at Motherwell.
32:24 Not just now, but even when he came in. I know, astonishing. We forget that everybody was saying
32:32 Motherwell were beyond saving. They were. They were saying they were beyond saving last year
32:37 when Kettlewell took over. And this was like, and he only took over as a caretaker, remember?
32:42 And they said this was just like, you know, rearranging the deck chairs in the Titanic,
32:46 you know, like that's what his kind of role was to be. And which he never stops telling you about,
32:52 you know, he hasn't lost an away game since, you know, since February. What is that, 10 or 11 away
32:57 games? And that includes Celtic Park. That includes Celtic Park. He took a point away from Celtic
33:03 Park, remember? That's right. And he's lost, he lost his best striker. He lost Kevin Van Veen
33:08 as well. Yeah, 29 goals. Yeah, yeah. It's phenomenal. I'd like to, you know, and the way
33:17 that they play, you know, and they're adaptable because when they had taken it, they were talking
33:22 last night, it was great analysis from Neil McCann and Charlie McGrew, I must say, about he's back
33:27 five and how he can kind of move it into almost a back six or a back four. You know, they are kind
33:34 of like flexible and that suggests good coaching. When a team can be flexible, whether how they,
33:43 you know, how they move forward, whether or not they're more kind of cautious, whether they open
33:48 up, you know, like the concertina effect, you know, it's like, can you do this? Can you do that?
33:53 Make good music both times, you know? Like, Motherwell seem to be able to do that and that
33:59 suggests to me that it's the coach that really is like setting this tone and in charge of his brief,
34:09 if you like. And Kettlewell seems to me a man very much in charge of his brief.
34:15 Doing a fine job, doing a fine job and they've started really well.
34:18 He's a good guy, so like I know that any of the other guys we've spoken about aren't good guys,
34:24 but you know, you like to see, I did feel he was harshly dealt with at Ross County and I'm not wise
34:29 after the event, I wrote it at the time, so it's good to see that I'm getting this opportunity.
34:33 It looks like he very much deserved.
34:36 Absolutely, absolutely. Well, as I said at the start of the programme, the premiership
34:41 takes a two-week break. We're back on Saturday the 16th. I think we got a full card of fixtures
34:46 that day. There are no Sunday matches and I've heard of Aberdeen against Hearts,
34:52 I think we've got Hems at Kilmarnock, Rangers are playing at St Johnson and Celtic Dundee,
34:57 so there's loads of good games to get into. But it takes a back seat, we've got the international
35:01 break, Scotland in Cyprus and then Scotland, England, so no doubt Andrew will catch up
35:07 during and after those two big Scotland games. Thank you very much for joining me today, Andrew.
35:11 You're welcome, thanks Mark.
35:13 Until next time, goodbye.
35:15 Cheers.