So Stephen Fletcher has decided to join a long list of Scottish non-footballing anti-heroes, from Kris Boyd to… erm… Lee McCulloch?  But the once-promising Wolverhampton benchwarmer has applied a novel twist to his retirement from the international scene: doing it by SMS.

Not only did he avoid telling Levein to his face, he also avoided telling him to his Blackberry, the Scotsman reports: “It is understood that Fletcher rejected the call-up by way of a text message to a third party.”  Even a chickenshit would be ashamed of pulling that one.

Coming soon to an iPad near you: Alan Hutton tweeting that he wants to leave Spurs.

Perhaps Fletcher just doesn’t see the point of travelling across the Irish Sea to play Northern Ireland. After all, it would be easier to pitch up at Murray Park these days with half the Norn Iron team at Rangers.

And no Jambos in the squad?  Really?  OK, so I called time on their league challenge last week, but no Driver, Wallace, or even Templeton?  There’s one Killie player in the squad and the rest are Anglos or in Turkey.  I know I rip the SPL a lot but there are some decent players in the league – and some of them haven’t even been charged with rape this year.

So Celtic beat Aberdeen for the third time in two weeks, and is anyone really surprised?  I think the only way Craig Brown could get the fishgutters up for a game against Celtic would be if the Parkhead team turned out in Rangers shirts (maybe Celtic’s kit man should get extra security for their next trip up north, just in case Broonie tries the switcheroo).

Aggregate score this year: Celtic 17 Aberdeen 1.  At least the Dons will finish in the bottom half so won’t have to embarrass themselves again.

In this week’s 3-0 defeat, Aberdeen had the excuse of playing all but two minutes of the game with ten men after Andrew Considine was sent off for a professional foul.

The British Broadcasting Corporation, internationally respected institution of honest journalism: “Considine’s foul was apparent but Aberdeen could argue that a yellow card was sufficient as Zander Diamond was racing across to cover.”

Outspoken scourge of bad refereeing Neil Lennon: “From where I was standing, I don’t think the referee had any choice.”

Neil, those green-tinted glasses really don’t match your ginger hair.

I haven’t gone through all the players in the SPL and added up their transfer fees, but I’m willing to bet you could have the lot for one Torres and a bit of a Carroll.

The only thing sillier than that is asking £14 million for an overweight gap-toothed Rangers reject.  OK, he can take a corner, and sometimes a free kick, but fourteen million pounds?  He’s from Dundee, FFS.  Ian Holloway is a bit of a joker but he’s definitely having a laugh with this one (Rangers fans aren’t, though: he was sold for buttons not so very long ago).  But Carroll moving for £35 million and £10m bids for Adam just go to show what half a season for a mid-table team in the EPL can do for you.

I’m still shocked no-one has come in for Allan McGregor.  I can only think that managers in England don’t rate the SPL (well, we all know that) and maybe they haven’t been impressed with Craig Gordon since he went south.  It’s a fair point, but McGregor has a decent European pedigree and – notwithstanding his recent shitting of the bed in the Old Firm game – is far less blunder prone than many of the keepers south of Hadrian’s lovely Wall.  And he’s a great shot stopper, as he showed yet again in Rangers’ 1-0 win over Hearts midweek.

Connor Sammon: ah well, Killie fans, it was nice while it lasted.  Maybe Mixu will pull on a shirt to replace him, they’re about the same shape.

El-Hadji Diouf’s signing by Walter Smith seemed a strange one, but I think it fills a gap in the Rangers squad.  Lee McCulloch is there to kick the Celtic players, and Kyle Lafferty  to stamp on them afterwards, but until the Senegalese psycho joined the Ibrox team there was no-one to berate the injured hoops while they are being placed on stretchers.  That’s all fixed now!  Thanks Walter. (Surely that’s the knighthood sorted?)

I used to play in a five-a-side league where one of the teams was called “Hibsnil.”  With no goals for the Easter Road mob in seven games, even I was thinking about feeling sorry for them.  But on Wednesday night – New Year’s Eve in China – they broke their duck in a 2-0 win over St Mirren to jump up to 10th place in the league.

I can’t see Calderwood seeing out the year of the rabbit in the hot seat at Easter Road, but this result might be enough to keep him going until Ching Ming in early April.  Ching Ming the  tomb-sweeping festival – a traditional day of mourning – but I’d wager it would be a day of celebration of Hibees when Calderwood does get his jotters.  They’re surely in the post.

Billy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDgEAqgpEWg