Long Time Coming: SPL Update

By: Ian Rose | February 21st, 2009

It’s been a long dark winter for the Scotland Offside. I won’t make too many excuses, but a new job and an obsession with my own club fighting relegation have left me little time or enthusiasm for keeping the league blog updated. Here’s what’s happened in the meantime.

Old Firm tightens up:
As of this moment, Rangers lead the league by one point, but Celtic have a game in hand and should, on form, beat Motherwell tomorrow. The latest Old Firm derby was last weekend, and ended in a pretty tepid 0-0 draw.

Two at the bottom:
With 12 matches left in the SPL season, there is a very clear bottom two in the SPL. The Bizarro Old Firm consists of Falkirk and my own beloved Caley Thistle. Falkirk is ahead of Caley by a single point, but is itself five points below Kilmarnock and St. Mirren. It is likely that one of these two will be headed down.

Hamilton Rises Again:
The Hamilton Accies started the season well, and then dropped all the way to last place, and looked to be dropping back to the First Division. But in the past seven league matches, they have six wins, and now sit in 8th place, tied on points for a top-half finish.

The Battle for Third:
Most pundits predicted Dundee United for the third-place European spot, and they looked to be living up to the hype. Two points total from their last four matches, including a draw with last-place Caley Thistle and a loss to Hamilton, though, have left Hearts two points ahead of them for third, and rising Aberdeen only two points behind. The race for the Europa League (god I hate that name) might be the best one to watch as the season comes to a close.

SPL 2: Electric Boogaloo?:
Just today, the Scottish Football League finally came around to the possibility of the SPL expanding to a second division, called SPL 2, which would basically replace the SFL Scottish First Division. SPL 2 would basically take all of the biggest second-tier teams in Scotland (Partick Thistle, Dunfermline, etc) out of the management of the SFL, and make it a league of very small teams.