I awoke this morning to some good news. I was worried about Pedro and am glad he is gone. This is a guy who knew that the players he inherited were not sufficiently good enough to mount a league challenge. This is a guy who moved on so many of Warburton’s duds and was in the process of weeding out more underachievers, this was a guy who I was afraid would have assembled a team in a couple of transfer windows to realistically mount a challenge to Celtic.
For that reason I am glad he has been sacked and the incoming manager at Ibrox will have to start a rebuild. It will be absolutely fascinating to see how all the players that Pedro has brought in react to the reason they are in Scotland being sacked.
I wonder if the alleged cultural schism that we have heard about will now be intensified now that the manager who signed the Latin players has been dismissed. Bruno Alves, friend of Ronaldo and Pepe COULD have used these friendships to lure these top Portuguese players to play with him and for Pedro at Sevco. The chances of that happening have, I would argue, significantly decreased. I think Scottish football will look back in a few years and ask why we were denied to see Bruno Alves’ close friends from the hugely successful Portuguese national team playing at grounds all around Scotland. The answer is that there is no Pedro to lure him.
I think Celtic has dodged a bullet with Pedro’s departure. I think he would have proven to be a worthy adversary for Brendan Rodgers over time and I wonder if the Celtic boss is secretly pleased that the Portuguese supremo has been sacked.
I think it is really ironic that money that we have recently won for Sevco will be used to pay off Pedro and as such will not be invested in new players. I think Scottish football has lost one of its great characters and a man who would have stopped at nothing to win Sevco a first major honour. His passion for Sevco was evident and I guess he has paid the price for the players he has inherited undermining him and not performing to the standards he would have expected, no, demanded from them.
I wish Pedro and his backroom team all the best and note that they too will require severance pay in lieu of notice.
It will be interesting to see if players of immense potential like Dalcio and Herrera reach their peak without the guiding arm of Pedro around their shoulder and whether a class player like Pena who has contributed more goals than Tom Rogic and Stuart Armstrong this season will continue to work hard at improving his game?
Time will tell, but Scotland has been robbed of potentially the greatest manager Sevco will ever have.
Good luck Pedro.