Saints will rue painful Europa Conference exit

Accepting and managing mediocrity is a real danger to our hopes of becoming regular achievers in European football.

There’s no doubt that our clubs are at a disadvantage in competing against many of the better resourced ones we face, but we have to avoid making that an excuse as we increasingly exit European competition before the credit card bills are in for travelling fans to pay for their trips.

Celtic and Rangers remain involved, but their group opponents won’t be trembling at the prospect of trips to Celtic Park or Ibrox.

We can dress it up however we like with descriptions of backs to the wall performances, brave attempts or hard luck on the night stories, the fact remains that Aberdeen, Hibs and St Johnstone are already out in the Euro cold at these early stages.

It may well be that on the European and world stages at both club and international level, this will be as good as it ever gets again.

The days of Aberdeen, Celtic and Rangers winning European trophies and Dundee United reaching European finals are now dim and distant history, unlikely ever to be repeated.

The facts sit uncomfortably with one of the great myths we like to tell ourselves – that we undersell our game.

We hear it all the time, whether it’s complaints about the miserly transfer fees offered from English clubs for our players or the money we sell our television rights for by comparison to other leagues.

Such comforting myths allow us to evade hard truths; that we continue to produce on the whole, players and teams which are not as technically astute, as cute or as smart on the pitch as those in many other countries.

There is no reason for this other than insufficient hard work at all levels.

There are individual honourable exceptions at all clubs, but in general we are getting out what we put in, which is not enough.

I’ve said it here before that there is nothing in our gene pool or water supply to prevent the production of football players who have the same level of ability as those in any other country, so the reasons for our failure have to lie in our organisational structures and work ethic.

In athletics and cycling at the Tokyo Olympics Laura Muir and Jack Carlin won medals against the world’s best, but in football we don’t compete regularly enough against the best to learn from superior opponents in the way that those sports stars do.

The early Euro exits become a vicious circle.

St Johnstone for example missed out on a golden goose by losing to LASK in midweek.

Clubs in the Europa Conference League group stage are due € 3.2m (£2.75m) just for getting into that stage, then there’s the bonus money for wins and draws to boost that pot.

That kind of money could have allowed Saints to strengthen even more domestically and pull further ahead of all but a handful of clubs in the top tier.

Up against a side which was technically very adept Saints gave themselves an impossible task with two red cards and two goals conceded.

At this level those are fatal events.

So once again it’s left to Celtic and Rangers to fly the flag in Europe, with Aberdeen and Hibs also out.

Even with the few millions on offer had they qualified, Saints wouldn’t have challenged for the league, but it would have greatly assisted them in providing the sternest of challenges to the rest of the Premiership and perhaps securing a third place finish.

For the two Dundee sides European football has been a distant prospect for a long time, so for them it’s all about what they do on the domestic front.

United have made the more impressive start of the two city clubs with two wins against top six sides – Rangers and St Johnstone.

If they can make it three on the bounce v Hearts, Tam Courts’ team will send a powerful message that they have what it takes to mix it with anyone this season.

There is a mobility and fluency about the United side, which is making them easier on the eye than under the old manager, and they look more difficult for opponents to pin down.

Similarly at Dens there’s some welcome craft, guile, and pace emerging which, as they showed in the draw v Hibs, can find routes to goal and through the midfield to create chances.

It’s very early days for both city sides and we’ll have a clearer picture in the coming weeks whether both managers are moulding teams which can stay the course over the season ahead – and can attempt more than just mere survival.

The picture at Tannadice is looking a lot brighter than many thought a couple of weeks ago, while at Dens there are some reasons to be cheerful.

In football, fortunes can change in the blink of an eye, which both Tam Courts and James McPake know only too well, but there’s reason for optimism on both sides of the street at this early stage.

RED CARD: David Wotherspoon is sent off as St Johnstone crash out of European competition.