Scots product is better than it gets credit for
Since being appointed manager of Dundee United, Micky Mellon has become used to being asked how the standard of football compares between Scotland and England.
Now, after eight months working in the top flight north of the border, he has reached a couple of firm conclusions.
“It’s a difficult question because England is so vast, it’s massive. There are so many teams and so many different levels and so many players,” said Mellon.
“Certainly, though, I think the product in Scotland is a lot better than perhaps we give it credit for. It is a tough league. The games are always really well balanced.”
Mellon believes that England, by contrast, is blessed with more explosive talents.
“I will speak about the English Championship, because I have never worked in the Premier, and the difference is that in every team you probably have three players capable of making an impact in the Premier League,” he said.
“That makes the games very different, because you’ve got game-changers in your team, who can cause damage.
“In Scotland, I don’t think we have as many of those game-changers, those elite players in every team.
“Some of the teams have got a couple. But, in my opinion, all the teams in the English Championship have got guys you could say are going to play in the Premier League and make an impact.
“In Scotland, you get really tight tussles between good technical players, but there’s not a massive amount of game-changers.
“The games are always very tight. From outside of the Old Firm to the bottom, they’re always tightly contested. There are good pros.
“Every week people ask me how I think it’s going to go, and I always say it will be tight, because it always is. It will be in the detail that it will be decided upon.
“But it’s certainly a much better product and there’s a much better standard of player than we sometimes give ourselves credit for.
“That would be my opinion, and I think my opinion would be fair, because I’ve worked very recently in both England and Scotland.
“That’s the best way I can describe the differences, but I know in terms of recruitment it is very tough to assess what level to target for players.
“You get a lot of good teams who might be quite low down but are on the rise.”
Callum Davidson’s bold young side continues to write its own scripts.
Six days ago, they comfortably outplayed Livingston at Hampden Park to win the Betfred League Cup for the first time in their history.
Here, back playing on their own turf for the first time since the Final, they avoided the “After the Lord Mayor’s Show” hangover so notorious with teams who have pulled off historic achievements.
Tough and committed, they followed up their midweek draw away at Hamilton Accies by seeing off a Hibs side who pushed them all the way.
And in the process they gave themselves a live shot at landing a top-six finish this season to set beside their shiny silverware success.
Beat Ross County in the last game before the split and St Mirren, their rivals to finish in the top half-dozen clubs, will need to beat Accies in their game to keep them out.
“It’s been a huge six days and I thought football-wise it’s probably the worst we’ve played all season,” said Davidson.
“But character-wise it’s probably the biggest. They knew they had to go and get three points today to give themselves a chance of the top six.
“Everyone put a real shift in.
“I thought about putting players in different positions like Liam Craig – that’s three games in six days so all credit to him how he looks after himself.
“I was a bit concerned the last 20 minutes but the front three gave us energy towards the end to get us up the pitch.
“We’ll get a well-earned break now. I am going to go home tonight and finally celebrate the cup victory.
“I think some of the boys celebrated on Sunday night! So it’s just me and my staff who never got the chance who will get a drink tonight.
“I will enjoy that but more importantly the players will get a few days off.”
Saints quickly learned they would not be allowed to rest on their laurels.
From the first whistle it was clear Hibs’ plan was get right in their faces. The visitors started at a high tempo and fairy snapped into their challenges.
To their credit, though, Callum Davidson’s showed they were up for it by giving as good as they got.
Better, in fact.
When David Wotherspoon put over a cross towards the head of Ali Mccann, Josh Doig made a bit of hash of his clearance by sending it straight out to Saints midfielder Liam Craig.
From the edge of the box, he curled a beauty past Hibs keeper
Ofir Marciano and into the net.
Having got the breakthrough, they then kept pressing in search of a second.
Wotherspoon, Craig and, especially, Ali Mccann all impressed as Hibs attempted frantically to try and win the battle in the centre of the pitch.
Again and again, the voice of Ryan Porteous bellowing out “Fight for it!” to his team-mates could be heard echoing round the ground.
The big defender’s encouragements had a bit of an effect as the Edinburgh side started to muscle their win a bit.
They weren’t too far away from grabbing an equaliser when Jamie Mccart shanked his attempted clearance of Josh Doig’s cross towards his own goal with keeper Zander Clark not too sure what was going on.
A slick move that earned
Joe Newell time and space in dangerous position saw them go closer still with the midfielder steering his effort just wide.
In the second half Liam Gordon got out of jail after under-hitting a back pass to Marciano.
His error let Kevin Nisbet in but Craig was alert to the danger and scrambled back to make a saving tackle.
With Nisbet going down under the challenge, Hibs appealed for a penalty but the officials were unmoved.
Jack Ross made full use of his substitutes’ bench as time ran down but to no avail.
The points and the plaudits belonged to St Johnstone.
In a competitive game, the ref only booked three players: Porteous and Newell of Hibs along with Wotherspoon of St Johnstone.
Ja c k Ross believes managers are getting hammered this season because the games are behind closed doors.
The Hibs boss was shown the yellow card by referee David Dickinson at St J o h n s t o n e ’s Mcdiarmid Park yesterday.
He was cautioned after reacting angrily when he felt his side should have been awarded a free-kick for a challenge on his player, Christian Doidge.
It f o l l ow s the re d shown to Rangers manager Steven Gerrard at Livingston in midweek and re p e a t e d re c e n t cautions for Graham Alexander of Motherwell.
“Listen, if I deserved to get booked, I deserve to get booked,” he said.
“What I would say, though, is that in empty stadiums I hear players saying a whole lot worse to referees regularly through a game.
“But managers are obviously, I guess, held accountable to a different standard with less leeway for what they can say.
“I think when you get to injury time and you’re frustrated that there’s no award of an obvious free- kick at the edge of the box the referee might understand a manager getting frustrated. “But so be it.
“I got a couple of explanations, one out on the pitch that he didn’t think it was a foul and inside he explained playing advantage. So it might get decided now what one it was.
“I know people might not think it a big deal but it was a pretty obvious free kick for a foul on Christian Doidge for me.
“At that time in the game it’s a chance for us to have a shot on goal or put the ball in the box.
“I’m not perfect, the officials aren’t perfect. But I just think there could be an understanding that you get frustrated.
“Sometimes I’ll be right and sometimes I’ll be wrong, same with them.
“So overall I am really frustrated. We were the better team, second half I thought we were excellent dominating a good side in their own stadium.
“So it’s a day of frustration at not taking at least a point.”
The Hibs manager said he will now try to turn his attention forward to ensure the Edinburgh club have a positive finish to their 2020- 21 campaign.
“It’s important for us to regroup again and I have to remind the players they are still in the driving seat to finish in third place,” he said.
“I have been critical and honest when we fall below standards but that didn’t happen in this match.
“The second half we saw today was probably the most St Johnstone have been camped in their own final third in a lot of home games this season.”