Are we in for an exciting SPL season?

The Scottish Premier League has long been a bit of a joke, listen to any football podcast and you will hear constant jibes at the quality north of the border.  Now, I have to be honest, this has never bothered me.  The SPL is pish and if it wasn’t for my overriding affection for Aberdeen, I doubt I’d give a damn.  I don’t watch Scottish football if Aberdeen aren’t involved and, until the last couple of years, their involvement actually tended to make me more miserable.  However, this season is possibly shaping up to be one of the most interesting in recent years, even without one half of the gruesome twosome being involved.

Nine games into the SPL season, Celtic sit in 6th place, mid table in the SPL – for those of you unaware – and have had quite possibly their worst start to a season, for as long as I can remember.  Even more surprisingly, the team at the top are recently promoted Hamilton, with Dundee United, Inverness Caley, Kilmarnock and Aberdeen making up the rest of the top 6.  Now, I should make clear right now, this won’t stay the same.  I don’t believe that and I doubt even the most optimistic Hamilton fan believes it. The odds are Celtic will eventually go on a run of form and reclaim top, why?  Because they have better players, a better squad and more money than the rest of the league.  However, that doesn’t change the fact that right now, this is shaping up to be a very interesting season.

A lot of this stems from the fact Celtic have downsized.  With Lennon leaving, although I still have my doubts about him as a manager and will be very interested to see how he does at Bolton, Celtic chose to go abroad and pick up the slightly cheaper Delia, who so far has had a rocky start.  Alongside this, they’ve had players go out and brought in cheaper options in return.  Some of these have worked out, Craig Gordon is well on his way to regaining his status as one of the best keepers in the UK, and some of them haven’t.  Either way, it has led to a weakened Celtic squad, something teams seem to have picked up on.  Suddenly, they look beatable and much like with what happened with Manchester United, a lot of the fear has gone.

However, to put this down simply to Celtic, is to take credit away from the rest of the teams involved.  The truth is the quality in the SPL has consistently been going up and that doesn’t seem to be changing.  Whether it be Dundee United, with their increasingly strong team made of young British players or my own Aberdeen where Derek McInnes has blended experience and youth into the most exciting team I’ve ever seen us put out, the SPL is currently full of young hungry Scottish talent, doing everything they can to get noticed.

Of course, the odds are this won’t last.  A lot of these players are too good to stay at this level and big money moves await.  However, it does suggest we have a good future ahead of us, both in league and international football.  Scotland are suddenly producing, if not great players, at least good ones and if the clubs can continue to do so, it may insure that the SPL, while never truly the most exciting league in the world, can at least become a breeding ground for good talented players.  In the here and now however, we might actually be in store for an exciting season in the top flight of Scottish football, which is something I doubt many could have predicted.