Will Alessio get it right at Killie & leave Kirk with egg on his face?
“LOOK, of course he’s had a difficult start to the season at Kilmarnock. He’s still getting to grips with the English language and that’s bound to have an impact on how he’s perceived in the dressing room.”
You’ll have heard plenty of this in the opening few weeks of the campaign but Kirk Broadfoot’s gone now and it’s no longer an issue. Similar sentiments, however, have also been expressed in relation to Killie boss Angelo Alessio.
His predecessor Steve Clarke left significant shoes to fill when he took the step down from Kilmarnock to the Scottish national team in May. His side had secured their highest finish since 1966, ending the season third in the table. No matter who replaced ‘Sir Steve’ there was an acceptance among fans they’d most likely not scale the same heights this season. Although many of the key players remain, there were high-profile departures that weakened the team. Jordan ‘Help, help there’s a weird toe on my hand. No wait, it’s my thumb’ Jones completed the move to Rangers he’d agreed in January, while Kris ‘Anything’s a salad dressing if you use your imagination’ Boyd hung up his boots.
Greg Taylor’s protracted but inevitable move to Celtic has robbed Alessio of one of last season’s standout performers. Boyd was a peripheral figure during 2018-19 but Jones and Taylor were a significant part of the team’s success. Managing their exits would have been difficult enough for Clarke had he remained, never mind a new boss with no experience of Scottish football.
A more surprising departure came at the start of September when Broadfoot was released from his contract. Now playing at St Mirren, the 35-year-old had a pop at Alessio’s methods within days of leaving Rugby Park.
“Everyone expected change when Steve went and Angelo came in but it went from one extreme to the other,” Broadfoot told Record Sport, adding: “Angelo was big on shape and that seemed to be his big thing on the training pitch. We spent hours just doing shape and him walking us through drills.
He continued: “I know Alessio has worked at some top clubs with top players but I’m not sure it was right for the guys we had at Kilmarnock.
“The majority of the players found it hard and I’m not sure how many of them enjoy it.
“I gave it a go but it became harder and harder and I just wasn’t enjoying it. It was night and day to what it had been like under Steve. He was super-organised and there was a real tempo to training in every session.
“Everybody knew what we had to do and what was expected of us and everyone saw how successful it was in Steve’s time.
“When Angelo came in training was just so flat and there was little tempo to it.”
Far be it from me to question the man who was once responsible for “the Scotland full-back was inspecting two eggs he had just poached in the microwave when one of them blew up and squirted scalding-hot water into his face” being an actual sentence on the front page of this newspaper but it feels like there are two sides to this story.
Having been nothing more than Antonio Conte’s assistant at such obscure sides as Juventus, Chelsea and the Italian national team, it’s understandable Alessio’s methods were given less than three months by Broadfoot before he chucked it. He is obviously entitled to feel unhappy with the new manager’s style.
It may well have been the wrong fit for him as he nears the end of his career. That’s not to say, however, that the rest of the Kilmarnock squad won’t ultimately thrive under the Italian
The Connah’s Quay Nomads defeat was obviously a huge embarrassment but as renowned Scottish football flops Gordon Strachan and Brendan Rodgers will tell you
freak results occasionally happen at the start of the season. That’s not an excuse for what was an abject result but there is certainly precedent for managers achieving considerable success after similarly alarming starts. Indeed, just weeks later a sense of optimism has been restored thanks to Killie putting together a run of three wins and a draw in four games. Alessio’s new keeper Laurentiu Branescu has kept four clean sheets in a row and the team now sit comfortably in sixth.
Alessio has had to acclimatise to a new culture and style of football. Players will adapt (and have already shown signs of adapting) to his methods. Similarly, as the Italian’s experience and understanding of Scottish football grow he too may begin to adapt his approach and allow for an increased tempo in training.
We’re still only five league games into the season and it’s entirely plausible three months from now when Kilmarnock tweet ‘It is with regret that Kilmarnock announces the departure of Angelo Alessio. We thank him for his service and wish him well in his future endeavours’ after a 4-0 defeat against Motherwell I’ll have this article thrust in my face and be made to look stupid. It has been known to happen.
Alessio’s first four matches were unimpressive but that was too soon to be panicking about his appointment. His subsequent four matches have seen a marked improvement but it’s still too early to be hailing him as a success. It’s a process and no matter the score when Kilmarnock visit Celtic tomorrow fans, players and pundits should allow him the time to put his stamp on the club.
Regardless of how Alessio’s reign pans out, it’s important to allow managers with different ideas enough time to implement them and make the necessary adjustments as they go along.
As Kirk Broadfoot himself might say; ‘Me like run fast. Sorry spaghetti man’. LOVE it (Brexiteer), loathe it (John Bercow) or repeatedly insist that “the application of the technology is still in its infancy and only once all the kinks have been ironed out will we be able to determine whether it’s beneficial to our game” (Centrist), VAR has been a regular talking point so far this season.
Well, south of the border it has. To the relief of many the technology has not as yet made its way to Scottish football.
Those EPL fans who have seen their celebrations cut short by the technology might be entitled to ask why supporters in Scotland have not been forced to endure the same misery.
It’s a valid question for which there are many long, drawn-out answers. For a more concise and definitive explanation we turn to the Highland League.
After laying on highlights of seven out of eight fixtures from the weekend, @ScottishHFL tweeted: “Both @ScottishHFL and @hsmscotland apologise for the absence of highlights for @clachfc v @TurriffUtd.
“This is due to the home side not charging the camcorder prior to the arrival of the videographer.
“We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.”
Perhaps the English Premier League isn’t the most realistic competition to be comparing our game with when it when it comes to video technology. @Depaysement, who represents 100% of the Scottish football fans from Kazakhstan that I’m aware of, responded to Camcordergate by tweeting: “I’m starting to think the rift between Kazakhstani and Scottish football isn’t as wide as previously thought.”
“It’s pretty wide but one day Scotland will catch up,” replied @thisisjoeyc.
If someone were to ask you: “Which former Rangers player not only fell for an April Fool’s but fell for it over five months late?”, the likelihood is you’d guess Josh Windass before they’d even finished asking the question.
Ah, Josh Windass. Sadly no longer plying his trade in Scottish football but his legacy as a man who could be outwitted by a pineapple with lipstick painted on it lives on.
On Monday he retweeted a video from the official McDonald’s Twitter account which showed customers dipping their fries in milkshakes.
The video, which it’s very important to remember was uploaded on the first day of April, begins with the words “Introducing new milkshake sauce pots”.
Amid harrowing scenes of a woman drowning her fries in strawberry milkshake, the video tells us it’s “for people who love to dip their fries in their milkshake” and adds “Get dipping from 1st April”. Seriously Josh, 1st April. None of those subtle clues (the date ‘01/04/2019’ shown next to the tweet, the date ‘1st April’ shown in the video, the fact that people are literally putting milkshake on their fries) gave Windass pause for thought when he shared the video and added: “If you do this you ain’t to be trusted.”
Some might suggest that a 25-year-old who falls for April Fool’s videos in September is even less trustworthy.
I say Windass is the only former Rangers player who could have fallen for it but it’s entirely plausible that Kirk Broadfoot has spent the last 15 years dipping his fries in milkshakes.