The general consensus of opinion is that Paul Le Guen's Gers have been playing some excellent football, even if the scorelines from our games against Motherwell and Dundee United didn't reflect our superiority. But we saw none of the top quality stuff at Dunfermline. It was a piss poor performance, as bad as anything we have seen even in our more troubled times, and a glorious chance to hit the front was thrown away.
After Saturday's games, we travelled to Fife knowing a two goal win would take us to the top of the table. Too much to ask? Obviously, and it makes it even harder to take that we didn't deserve anything better than a 1-1 draw. The home team did nothing for the game as an entertainment spectacle, playing with a flat back five (yes FIVE!) and showing no inclination to venture forward too often, but it is surely not asking too much of our highly paid and undoubtedly talented players that they should be able to break down such a basic ploy.
We hardly strung two passes together all afternoon and, when your game is based on a crisp switching of the ball from one player to another, that is a major problem. Eventually we reverted to Plan B, humping the thing up towards Kris Boyd but, surrounded by three basketball players, he didn't win much in the air. The introduction of Burkey and Lee Martin to do a bit of damage on the wings brightened things up briefly but, even when they got past their markers to get to the line, the cross was poor and the danger was cleared.
It was good to see Thomas Buffel at last get a goal and for a few minutes I thought we might hold on, then maybe even nick a second one before the end. But another comedy of errors at the back, with Rodriguez colliding with Letizi just as the keeper was gathering a cross, presented Dunfermline with the equalizer. Go on Rangers, why not make life hard for yourselves?
Results went our way on Saturday, with Falkirk holding Hearts at Tynecastle and two other games ending goalless, depriving everyone of points. As expected, Sellick brought St.Mirren's good run to an end but were far from impressive in doing it and the Sheepies won at Motherwell. That'll do us, I thought…but still I wasn't too confident about going to Dunfermline. Lighten up, I told myself, knowing they can go top is just the sort of stuff to lift the team and bring something special out of them. Ho-hum.
It really is so annoying. The early fixture list has been kind to us. Three games against teams who, rather than pushing into the top six, will be battling against relegation gave us a great chance to get off to a flyer. But instead of sitting at the top and savouring the feelgood factor and enjoying a major confidence booster, we are languishing in sixth place and facing a big high-pressure game this weekend. Allowing the Jambos to put any daylight between them and us would be a major blow. Playing catch-up is the not the way it should be.
We came into this season full of high hopes. With one of the top coaches in the game in charge and his type of players around him, we could hardly fail. Eh?
On the evidence of Sunday's shite showing, Paul Le Guen has a lot of work to do before his team is ready to mount a serious challenge in the mickey mouse SPL. For now, Europe can wait.
KILLIE BILLY