SCOTTISH clubs only have themselves to blame after five years of abject performances - Celtic apart - have left them down with the game's minnows in European competitions.
SNS Group/Craig Watson
It?s not UEFA?s fault Celtic are playing European football in the middle of the Glasgow Fair fortnight. It?s only partially Celtic?s fault.
But if Neil Lennon wants that situation changed, it?s time he and everyone else saw the big picture.
Because it?s Scottish football?s failure as a whole that has put them there ? and it?s only the whole of Scottish football that can fix it.
Celtic can pull as many rabbits out of hats as they like, as they did last season. But all they proved with those performances ? given where we STILL finished in the UEFA rankings ? was the fact that they can?t do it on their Jack Jones. And until the game continues to do hee-haw to help itself, nothing will change.
Let?s put it in perspective with a few stats. In 2007/08, when Rangers reached the UEFA Cup Final, Celtic got to the Champions League last 16 and Aberdeen made it past their UEFA Cup group, Scotland were the fifth best nation on the continent in terms of European performance.
But the co-efficient, the bedrock of the entire system, works on a five-year cycle and that season has fallen off the radar.
So in the four years after that? We fell to 29th, 25th, 21st and 25th.
And last season? Absolutely stellar from Celtic, right? Only 11 teams in Europe out-performed them and their 20 co-efficient points. All of them came from the top seven nations.
Nine of those 11 were teams who went straight into the groups. Yet where did we finish in the co-efficient rankings? A whopping 19th ? because everyone else was so abject.
Your number is divided by the number of teams taking part. And between Motherwell, Hearts, St Johnstone and Dundee United, they mustered 1.5 points with three draws in 10 games. That?s your lot. Each one of them fell at the first, Well in two different competitions.
So Scotland?s total was 21.5 divided by five ? 4.3. Meaning that despite Celtic out-performing the 11 nations above them, they?re still moving backwards.
A few more stats. Since 2008, in the 30 competitions our teams have entered in Europe, we?ve gone out at the first hurdle 22 times ? more than half of them to teams from countries ranked below us in the table.
In 104 games ? not including this past week ? we?ve won only 23. What we need are more results like St Johnstone?s in midweek, not just Celtic?s.
Fair play to Tommy Wright and his men, going over to Norway and coming away with a win and a clean sheet against a team with a huge pedigree in Europe. But this is one of our problems ? we see a victory like that as some kind of major upset.
Why should it be? With all due respect, it was 11 years ago when Rosenborg held the record for eight straight qualifications for the Champions League group stages. For the past two seasons they?ve finished third in a league ranked below ours in the co-efficient.
Why the hell shouldn?t St Johnstone go through against them?
God bless them for shaking off the inferiority complex that has afflicted so many of our teams over the years, accepting defeat to teams who were never more than their equals, your Slask Wroclaws and NK Maribors of this world.
But we need more of it and the game needs to help them produce it. Our preparation for what should be our most important games of the season is still lousy. Three years ago it was decided the season had to start earlier to help them be more competitive.
Whatever happened to that?
We?re back to winging it again, hoping to be competitive, despite not having had a single competitive minute of action against teams half way through their seasons.
The lack of joined-up thinking between performances and progress in Europe is monumental.
So if Lenny wants Celtic to avoid having three qualifiers in future, his club has to help everyone else think of ways to make the whole Scottish game stronger and more competitive, not just themselves.
A mindset that has historically never come easy to them or their former Old Firm rivals.
Source: http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/gordon-waddell-no-point-blaming-2071839
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