Ranieri proves you don’t need Glasgow postcode to win title
ONLY a drunk would have staked his cash on Leicester City winning the Barclays Premier League. Leigh Herbert is the proof. Last August the lifelong Leicester fan had a skinful one day and decided to stick a fiver on his hometown team at odds of 5,000/1.
By Tuesday morning he was more than £20,000 better off; a living, breathing advertisement for drunken bravado.
He’s not alone. The optimists and proper Herberts who stuck a bet on Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester by mistake have been coming out of the woodwork ever since. When they placed their lines last summer, they were ridiculed.
And, were any punter to walk into the local branch of Ladbrokes in Motherwell or Inverness and stick a tenner on the local team for next season’s SPFL Premiership, they would receive a similar response. Right now both clubs are 200/1 for next term’s title. And the reason for that is clear.
Scottish football and its supporters are locked in a culture of hopelessness. No one stakes money on these clubs because no one believes they can win.
Provincial clubs from Dingwall to Dunfermline are going through the motions. Ross County had the best day in their history when they won the League Cup this season. It was their first major trophy and a hell of an achievement.
But does anyone really think Jim McIntyre’s admirable team will use it as a platform to challenge Celtic next season? Not really.
If Rangers win the Scottish Cup they will fancy their chances. They outplayed Ronny Deila’s champions in the semi-final and already do. And history shows why.
Set aside the tedious obsessives and their new club fixation and you have to go back 31 years to find the last time a club from outwith Glasgow won the Scottish Premier League title.
Aberdeen were the last to do it in 1985. And the Pittodrie club have re-established themselves as credible challengers over the last two seasons.
Manager Derek McInnes is annoyed his team have taken some abuse and criticism for failing to sustain their challenge — and he has a point.
Had Leicester fallen at the final hurdle they would have received little or no stick. To take aim at Aberdeen for falling short is unfair. But neither should anyone be hanging garlands around their necks.
Because Leicester have just changed the rules of engagement.
They have ripped up every reason for failure offered by a manager in the last 30 years. And exposed the deep-lying conviction that a club can’t win the Scottish title unless they have the biggest budget and a Glasgow postcode.
In Scottish terms, Ranieri’s club spend fortunes. Their net spend over five years is £64million. A huge sum on this side of the border perhaps, but a tiny fraction of what English rivals spend.
Tottenham have ploughed every penny — and then some — of the £115m scooped from the sales of Luka Modric and Gareth Bale.
Abu Dhabi sheikhs, meanwhile, have cast £100m a year at Manchester City in the last five seasons. Chelsea are worst of all, spunking £472m.
To this observer, Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest remain the greatest football story ever written.
But the magnitude of Leicester’s feat can’t be denied. England’s biggest clubs have been handed a bloody nose.
Leonardo Ulloa cost just £8m. Shinji Okazaki was £7m.
McInnes and Robbie Neilson can only dream of spending those sums. Shopping in Scotland’s lower leagues with £200,000 to spend offers a significantly lower chance of success than scouring Europe with £8m in the hip pocket.
But what Leicester showed is this. How much money a club spends is less important than how they spend it.
With a bit of backing from the board, a couple of decent centrehalves and a replacement for keeper Danny Ward in January, Aberdeen could have done a Leicester. Celtic were there for the taking.
Rejuvenated under Ann Budge, meanwhile, Hearts should also be making a push.
Plenty will say it’s impossible. It’s how Scottish fans think; defeatism is now the default setting. But forget the tedious talk of a 16-team league. Or buying booze at games.
The single best thing that could happen to Scottish football is for a team from outwith Glasgow to win the league.