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When Alex McLeish Took Over


BlueSuedeSambas

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Just been watching the "SPL classics" video on the BBC website where Kilmarnock came back from 2-0 down to secure a draw with us not long after Eck took over (Boyd scored Kilmarnock's first)

Anyway that wasn't really that interesting, but what I did find interesting was the list of players who were on our books in the early part of that season:

Lovenkrands, Arveldaze, Ball, Latapy, Kanchelskis, de Boer, Reyna, McCann, Mols, Flo, Cannigia, Ferguson, Amoruso, Numan, Vidmar, Konterman, Moore, Ricksen & Klos.

Obvious we lost guys likes Tugay, Wallace, Albertz & Gio that Summer and Celtic invested heavily, but that's still a pretty impressive list of talent so what I was wondering was what the hell happened that made us so bad that we were 12 points behind Celtic when the decision to make McLeish manager was taken? It surely couldn't have been the two factors that I mentioned?

There was maybe an obvious reason, but remember that I was only 13 and fancied myself as the next Tony Hawk at the time so I didn't follow football anything like I do now.

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advocaat bought konterman instead of vaalgarren (sp)

celtic stopped leaking bad goals, we started to

ricksen was woeful at right back too, flo was powderpuff up front, de boer arrived with a knee injury iirc and was half fit for the rest of the season

meanwhile o'neill had a team of caber tossers that bullied their way to the title 2 years on the trot, not one team could actually stop them in a strength fight

iirc we drew 1-1 with them in the final game of the season at the piggery and that stopped them getting a 100% record at home for the full season, thats how bad the SPL was, including us

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I think things got a bit stale under Advocaat and bringing Big Eck in was a breath of fresh air.

I was not expecting him to come in and deliver trophies straight away but 2 trophies in his first few months and then the treble in his first full season in charge was a tremendous achievement and I don't think McLeish got the credit he deserved for that.

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Just been watching the "SPL classics" video on the BBC website where Kilmarnock came back from 2-0 down to secure a draw with us not long after Eck took over (Boyd scored Kilmarnock's first)

Anyway that wasn't really that interesting, but what I did find interesting was the list of players who were on our books in the early part of that season:

Lovenkrands, Arveldaze, Ball, Latapy, Kanchelskis, de Boer, Reyna, McCann, Mols, Flo, Cannigia, Ferguson, Amoruso, Numan, Vidmar, Konterman, Moore, Ricksen & Klos.

Obvious we lost guys likes Tugay, Wallace, Albertz & Gio that Summer and Celtic invested heavily, but that's still a pretty impressive list of talent so what I was wondering was what the hell happened that made us so bad that we were 12 points behind Celtic when the decision to make McLeish manager was taken? It surely couldn't have been the two factors that I mentioned?

There was maybe an obvious reason, but remember that I was only 13 and fancied myself as the next Tony Hawk at the time so I didn't follow football anything like I do now.

He doesn't score against the big teams though :craphead:

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I think things got a bit stale under Advocaat and bringing Big Eck in was a breath of fresh air.

I was not expecting him to come in and deliver trophies straight away but 2 trophies in his first few months and then the treble in his first full season in charge was a tremendous achievement and I don't think McLeish got the credit he deserved for that.

At that point mcleish looked a masterstroke, did he not go unbeaten in about his first 7 OF games too? Then proceeded to lose the next 6 or 7 old firms. This did coincide with losing quality players and replacing them with investments like emerson, capucho and ostenstad right enough.

Just writing that is reminding me of walters comments in the summer, when we spanked the cash on jelavic, he was talking about how he could have spend the fee/wages on a couple of guys but would rather have quality, keep the overall standard of the squad up etc.

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We had horrific injury problems at the start of the 01/02 season

I remember our first home game was against Livingston, incidentally my first ever visit to Ibrox, and the team was:

Klos

Ricksen Moore Wilson Vidmar

Johnston Konterman Hughes McCann

Caniggia Flo

No Numan, Amoruso, Ferguson, de Boer or Arveladze

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