ADRIAN DURHAM COLUMN: Scottish football is a joke... Spurs' Bale tactics are hardly the second coming of Rinus Michels, but they're effective... Why Sunderland are Premier League padding
The Scottish Premier League is ridiculous.
Celtic are 21 points clear and they could win the title in a fortnight. The second best team in Scotland are currently 22 points clear in the Third Division.
Last summer the bloodthirsty desire to punish Rangers resulted in the death of Scottish football as sustainable worthy entertainment.
Third is exactly where Spurs should be right now.
Chelsea’s attempt to break the world record for the amount of times a club can self-destruct in one season is well on course to succeed.
Meantime Arsenal continue to sell their best players and buy rubbish to replace them – mismanagement of the highest order by a man who apparently cannot be sacked.
Third in the Premier League is the bare minimum Spurs fans should demand this season.
The tactic of giving the ball to Gareth Bale and letting him have as many shots as possible clearly seems to be working.
It’s not exactly the second coming of Rinus Michels (above) admittedly, more total Bale than total football. But well done Spurs and well done AVB.
The Rangers-haters got what they wanted, and ended up with a joke league. Good work.
There’s a cryptic message for devolution lovers in there somewhere.
Below Celtic, four points separate eight teams. It would be a decent league worth watching if you took Celtic out of it, which is surely the only sensible solution.
The 5-0 thrashing of bottom club Dundee at the weekend was a training exercise and Celtic Park was nowhere near full. And why would fans pay to watch their team train?
Celtic have scored 53 more goals than Dundee already this season. It was an embarrassing mis-match.
We’re seeing the net result of this in Europe as well. Yes the crowd, the spirit and the whole atmosphere at Celtic when a juggernaut of world football like Barcelona arrive in town can carry Celtic through the odd night or two. But that can only take you so far. And Neil Lennon’s side were subsequently swept aside by Juventus.
The conclusion is this: the SPL is a joke, and it needs sorting out before the passion of the fans is diluted by the meaningless football north of the border.
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When Grant Holt bundled in Norwich City’s winner on Saturday Everton manager David Moyes started looking for excuses.Unfortunately he then proceeded to let himself down by charging onto the field moments later, refusing to shake hands with the referee, and demanding the official gave an explanation for adding an extra 16 seconds to the displayed 3 minutes of stoppage time.
More from Adrian Durham... ADRIAN DURHAM COLUMN: Why I still admire Pulis despite his 'fightball' tactics... Why the yobs will keep me away from Wembley for Ireland visit... And why German football's nicht all it's cracked up to be (it's almost as one-sided as Scotland!) 28/05/13 ADRIAN DURHAM: Mourinho's not so special... how AVB failed in first year at Spurs... and why I didn't want Arsenal to qualify for Champions League 21/05/13 ADRIAN DURHAM COLUMN: Why it's Mourinho's fault that Sir Alex has called it a day… Moyes needs to lay down the law and get Rooney to stay… and AVB needs Gareth to Bale him out 14/05/13 ADRIAN DURHAM: Teams promoted from sea of mediocrity could be embarrassing in the Premier League... Forget Luiz and Rafael, real issue is United's betrayal of competition... Oh, and is anyone else already bored of wild-eyed Di Canio? 07/05/13 Why I'd be happy to see Sunderland, Wigan or Newcastle go down... but Villa can stay 03/05/13 THE ADRIAN DURHAM COLUMN: Pardew must go... and he can take Di Canio with him... Davids was a Barnet blunder... Hazard would've won the league with a better boss... and a little bit of De La Soul 30/04/13 ADRIAN DURHAM COLUMN: United's title win shows Rooney is key, Mancini is Mr Average and Hodgson is talking nonsense... And as for Suarez, it's time Liverpool let him walk (alone)! 23/04/13 ADRIAN DURHAM COLUMN: True football fans stick together. Bill Kenwright's remarkable Hillsborough speech proved that 16/04/13 ADRIAN DURHAM COLUMN: Why I'm breaking my vow on brainless Barton... It would be a travesty if Villa go down and teams like Norwich and Stoke survive... And like Superman couldn't handle Kryptonite, United haters can't handle truth 09/04/13 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE In hindsight Moyes would probably choose not to take that course of action because he didn’t look good. But he did have a point. Added time is meant to be a minimum number of minutes decided by the referee. Any extra is at the discretion of the man in the middle. And that is where it gets a bit unclear. Moyes was asking for an explanation of why those extra seconds were added. The referee is not obliged to explain. Earlier this season Brian McDermott complained when Kevin Friend added 6 minutes when only four were displayed – Arsenal scored an equaliser in that time and ended up winning their League Cup tie 7-5. McDermott said afterwards: 'You can’t tell the time as wrong as that, but he did.'Sir Alex Ferguson had the opposite problem against Spurs this season – not enough time. Six substitutions, three goals and persistent time-wasting for the last half an hour of the game were deemed worthy of just four minutes added time by referee Chris Foy. Not enough according to the Manchester United manager.You get unacceptable situations like Manchester United being unable to take a corner away to Real Madrid because the ref had blown for full-time despite the fact the ball was out of play. Same happened to Juventus against Roma recently in Serie A. Stopping a clock in real time when the ball goes out of play might seem obvious, but the ball is actually in play for less than 65 minutes in most Premier League games. Matches would go on and on and on. It does seem absurd that referees are asked to look after the time-keeping. My answer is to hand the watch over to the fourth official immediately and it’s one less huge thing for the refs to worry about.And it means less moaning about Fergie time from Sir Alex.
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Is it boring being a Sunderland fan?
They’re not involved in relegation battles, they don’t aim for the top four, and they don’t get to cup finals. They went out of both cups at home to Championship sides this season, but they usually have a win against a top four side each season – they beat Champions Manchester City on Boxing Day. Sunderland are Premier League padding. Having been in the top flight since 2007 they surely can no longer say survival is their main aim. But then what? Would they even be better off having a season in the Championship, going for promotion? Or better still getting to a play-off final and having a day out at Wembley? Premier League padding: Sunderland's Titus Bramble (left) and Craig Gardner (right) compete with West Brom's Peter Odemwingie during Saturday's 2-1 defeat at The Hawthorns The fact that Sunderland were prepared to pay good money for a striker who had no hunger to stay at Swansea and play some part in a cup final at Wembley tells you a lot about the ambition at The Stadium of Light. A player not interested in glory seems to have found the right club for him. This could all sort itself out if Sunderland’s current form continues – they’ve lost all three games in February. And they’re not safe from the drop. It could be their most interesting season in years. BRUCEY BONUS?Last week Steve Bruce signed a player who had created three goals and scored one in his previous game.
He left him on the bench at Bolton.
Hull lost 4-1. Managing a football club really isn’t rocket science is it?
I’d like to think David Beckham’s 15-minute debut for Paris Saint-Germain would shut the critics up. But sadly they’re not interested in watching him play football – they’ve judged him already. The irony of that might even make Victoria smile.
For the sceptics, he came on in central midfield to try to stop the Marseille surge towards an inevitable equaliser.
Beckham’s job was to get PSG going forward somehow. It was a night when Ibrahimovic was at his lazy, useless worst, and Lavezzi alongside him was being brilliant one minute and then unable to control the football the next.
Beckham’s first pass was from deep in his own half out to Lavezzi on the halfway line. He then gave away a free kick, tactically not the worst decision to make in that moment.
His next two passes were perfect, and took PSG into the Marseille half. He then over-hit one out of play for a goal-kick.
Then his best moment: a lovely flick into the path of Jeremy Menez in the Marseille box, the ball almost tempted the defender to make a challenge, but he knew it might result in a penalty. Instead Menez fired it across goal, and it hit Zlatan’s knee and went in.
It was 15 minutes, Beckham did his job, and Paris won the match. God knows what the haters would have said if he had been rubbish.
Star turn: David Beckham (red top) of PSG is pictured on the bench with his new team-mates prior toSunday's 2-0 win over MarseilleMore... Bale deserves to be player of the year, says AVB after star's thunderbolt stuns West Ham EXCLUSIVE: Players hit back after Benitez slates Chelsea squad in training for limp display in Manchester City defeat Flares, smoke bombs and pitch invaders mar Liverpool v Man United Under 21 clash JAMIE CARRAGHER: Messi and Ronaldo are the best... of enemies. Like others before, their rivalry drives them on to greater things
