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'A Rangers side which United have matched and bested in the recent past, triumphed at Tannadice not because they had superior players, (although on the night they did)'

Am I paying for this drivel through my licence fee? What are the site editors doing? Early Christmas party??

For Heaven's SAKE!

The truth is Rangers (and Celtic) do have superior players to the other teams, though those players don't always show it or the other teams can sometimes overcome it through good organisation, hard work or whatever. The league table over many years - and most likely this season as well - confirms that the Old Firm ahve better players.

"Spenceythetim" - if that is a reference to Jim Spence you really are misguided. How pathetic that if someone makes a suggestion anti-Rangers they are deemed to be pro-celtic. Do you not realise that a significant number of us dislike both halves of the old firm with equal measure.

As for Spencey's comments, I don't agree that United have equal quality players, but I don't think the gap is huge any more.

#1 - "Am I paying for this drivel through my licence fee?"

No. You're paying for a large broadcasting output including, but not limited to Radio, Television and Web content).

Not all of this will appeal in terms of subject matter.

Not all the opinions (and please note this is a blog and therefore only an opinion) will be ones you agree with or think are worth expressing.

In which case go and read something else, watch something else or listen to something else.

As a sports fan you're pretty much getting market value for the licence fee in terms of the sports coverage (regardless of whether you also pay for sky and think it's better value).

Not sure I agree with you on "sheer mental toughness" in respect of the Old Firm. None of the other teams in Scotland carry such a huge fan base around with them. I marvelled at the level of consistency of the early eighties Aberdeen team. On the Wednesday playing in a European Capital to a packed house and on the Saturday playing at, just, for an example, Boghead in front of 2,000 or so and winning....... I would respectfully suggest that that takes mental toughness.

There are many sides of the Old Firm fans, some less savoury than others, but I would suggest that the consistency of the Team is more to do with the consistent level of support at every venue in Scotland and to some extent abroad. Having that huge noisy support must be like an extra man at every match. Coupled to the undouted talent it is a surprise they actually lose any matches (I would argue).

None of the other Teams in scotland have this type of support and I have always thought that any team who won our Scottish League outside the Old Firm had far greater qualities than an average title winning Old Firm Team. Real Mental Toughness..........

In all fairness to #1, I don't think he's necessarily lambasting Jim Spence's sentiment, more the fact that the sentence seems to contradict itself, although if you read it back you can see it's actually correct. Initially it looks like he's saying "they didn't have better players, although they did", which is the sort of thing you see in the Colemanballs column in Private Eye for nonsensical things said by sports commentators, but what he's meaning is that they may have had better players, but this wasn't why they triumphed on the night. So he's actually right enough.

Unless #1 really was just slagging off Jim's opinion, which is a bit of a shame since his blog is so much better than Chick Young's ever was.

My namesake, Jim Spence the 'blogger' (is that a profession?), claims that a winning attitude was responsible for Rangers' defeat of Dundee United this week, not their having better players. Yet he concedes simultaneously that Rangers _have_ better players. Anyone who saw, listened to or read about the game will know that Rangers' better players played very well against United and, thus, won the game.

SO, if Mr Spence is trying to make an argument that the 'winning mentality' is what will make a difference to non-Old Firm teams, it is somewhat facile to cite as supporting evidence a game where Rangers' better players won by dint of, er, manifestly playing better than the Arabs.

(My login name on this forum is SpenceyTheTim because MY name is Spence and I'm a Tim.)

"A Rangers side which United have matched and bested in the recent past, triumphed at Tannadice not because they had superior players".

Wot a ridiculous statement, of course Rangers have better players thats why most of them are full internationals and some will be performing at the World cup this summer, how many Dundee Utd players will be playing at this event?

This statement would have been more appropriate if Utd had beaten Rangers. The only time a non-old firm team beats Rangers or Celtic is when they put in more effort and the old firm have an off day.

I do however accept that the gap between the Old Firm and the rest is smaller than in previous seasons but this is more due to the decline in the standard of the Old Firm.

"Wot a ridiculous statement, of course Rangers have better players thats why most of them are full internationals and some will be performing at the World cup this summer, how many Dundee Utd players will be playing at this event?"

Care to elaborate? Which Rangers players will be there? I can think of Beasley & Bougherra off the top of my head. Edu might make it but he'll probably need to play a good deal more games before summer. After that?Pedro Mendes for Portugal? Highly unlikely. Novo for Spain? Ridiculous.

United could easily have as many players there as you lot: Pernis for Slovakia and Buaben for Ghana are both internationals.

Jim Spence is essentially right.

To Celtic and Rangers for the last two decades any drawn game has equalled a small disaster.

That's the mentality you need to win titles. That's what marks out the top managers eg Alex Ferguson: that's why Aberdeen were so dominant in the eighties.

There was one narrow Celtic win over Dundee that I will never forget because it epitomised Martin O'Neill's ability to force his team to give everything to win until the very last minute. It should have been a routine league fixture, but the team wouldn't accept what looked like it was going to be a draw: I think it was Agathe that got the winner in the last minute of stoppage time.

And as David Andrews says, having thousands of fans on your back to win home and away helps focus the mind to keep giving your all until the last second...

The remarks regarding the blogs linguistic accuracy are perhaps true, although, its certainly better than Chic Young's.

The point Jim is making, which is essentially true, is that United didnt turn up, frozen perhaps by the significance of the fixture, whereas the Rangers players, so often burdened by the pressure inherent in merely turning out for one of the Old Firm on a weekly basis, were able to handle the pressure admirably. Aside from the odd cup game, this happens often when non-Old firm outfits find themselves in such lofty positions.

Agree that the non OF teams lack something, but I wouldn't say it's mental toughness, but rather consistency. It's not their ability to match the old firm, but rather the ability to produce week in, week out against "lesser" teams. Perhaps the difference is semantics, but I don't think so.

To take an obvious example, if Aberdeen consistently reproduced the standards they achieve against Rangers at Pittodrie, they'd be challenging for the league. If Rangers had the necessary mental toughness, then why can't they beat an Aberdeen team with poorer players at Pittodrie?

In response to the point about Fergie's Aberdeen, yes they had the mental toughness to go to Glasgow and win, but it was more about dropping very few points between visits. In much the same way Manchester United won the EPL last year not because of their (poor) results against the "top four", but because they didn't drop so many points against the others.

The problem for non-OF teams is that if they produce players with the necessary attributes to win on a regular basis, then they only last about a season before being snapped up to either warm an old firm bench, or get more money in England. And there's the rub... Modern football is about money and the old firm (despite Rangers current problems) still have lots more of it (in a Scottish context).

Are you forgetting that hibs currently have the highest unbeaten run in the league?

12 games unbeaten, facing the league leaders and title holders this weekend with the possibility of going second if results elsewhere help us.

I think that deserved some sort of mention in there Jim and i cant believe it has just been ignored completely.
As a hibs fan defeat will be horrible when we inevitably face it in this season, regardless of whether it is against (heaven forbid) Hamilton again or Rangers next week. NOBODY likes to lose DUH!!!

paulmc_hfc

while of course you are right that no team likes to lose, I think you're maybe missing the point of the blog.

IF Hibs were to start losing a few games here and there and finished comfortably 3rd, then Yogi would be hailed as a fantastic manager, the players would be touted for a 'big' move and the fans would undoubtedly be happy. If the same thing where to happen to Rangers or Celtic the players and manager would be chased out of Glasgow.
Somewhere deep in the psyche of the club and players the non-Old Firm teams know a defeat or draw isn't catastrophic. Old Firm players don't have that luxury, especially given the level of media coverage of the Glasgow teams compared to the rest.

I think you should take it as a compliment that Hibs haven't been mentioned here and United have. While it's been widely interpreted that United blew a big chance to make a statement of intent against Rangers, Hibs have so far stayed consistent, as you quite rightly pointed it.

Hopefully that will change and the Gers will get a win at Easter Road mind!

Interesting blog as usual Jim and as usual interesting responses. I'm not sure about the mental toughness part though, surely playing for Dundee Utd would make that a pre rec for agreeing to sign for them in the first place lol.
I agree that I think the gap is probably narrowing a little bit between the teams. I also believe that the success of Aberdeen and Dundee Utd(spit) in the 80's was down to good managers and good players who resisted the urge to move on for more money or were happy where they were etc etc.
The difficulty now, and more so in my opinion, is that when a club gets a good player either the old firm will try and buy the player or the player will move down south for footballing reasons(money). That makes it very difficult I would imagine for a manager to build a side, also clubs need to sell in order to keep going.
The old firm can moan about lack of competition within Scottish Football for their crap showing in the European Comps but that just deflects from their own shortcomings. Go back to sharing gate money and a more even split with tv money would help solve that problem, of course they will never go for that.
I suppose the simple fact is that the Old Firm do have better players, and in many ways get decisions that the other teams don't. However, I do believe that the gap is slightly narrowing now. The Old Firm are not great anymore, Rangers don't have an Ally McCoist and celtic don't have a Paul McStay and long may that continue as far as I am concerned. I believe a more level playing field in regards to players can only help the Scottish game. My Team, the mighty Dees, have some good young players. if we can keep them, maybe we can over the next few years have a go at staying in the SPL if we get there and these same players can then go out and prove they are as good if not better than the Old Firm. Maybe it's not so much mental toughness but belief, the non old firm players need to believe in their own ability more, maybe then they will give the old firm clubs and fans the games they seek and we will see a challenge to the moaning two again.
But then if that happens then the old firm will try and sign them on the cheap, stick them in the resrves to ensure that they have no challengers. Oh the wonders of Scottish football, don't ya just love it.
A wee side point, Dundee FC are top of the league, won the Alba Cup and are not losing at Dens. You couldn't pay me to support any of the other want to be football teams in Scotland, well maybe Arbroath ( great pies ).

Well Jim, stirred up a wee bit of a storm here. Not surprising really. Mental Toughness! Honestly, can’t you do better than that? Old clichés die hard it seems, especially when people live in the past.

We’ve got to get away from a fixation with the Old Firm. If truth be told many Scottish fans now look to only two areas of our game to save our Scottish faces in some vain hope that our pride can be restored. The first is the national side and secondly it’s success in European competition for the Old Firm.

When there is an upward spike in the usual mundane performance trend, we seem to be swept along on a euphoric wave of optimism but at the same time forgetting that things haven’t really changed and that back at club level it’s the same old decline.

I blame football management and I’m not referring to the often maligned team managers. I mean management - that thing that is supposed to be provided in order that something can be a success.

So what is the SFA doing? Nothing visible. Without the leadership to promote change and steer it, many club boards are ‘on their own’ without knowing what direction to go, their role reduced to that of mere administrators.

The fact that we have a league structure left at all is a minor miracle and down to all the clubs and players who put in a shift every Saturday, against the odds and in the face of lack of support at the top.

If that isn’t mental toughness, I don’t know what is.

Don’t get off track. Keep up the pressure for change.