HOPELESS bigheads, he said. Sometimes we wish Dick Advocaat would come out and say what he thinks.

Whatever may be written or spoken about the Dutchman, who has made such a mark on football in this country, no one could ever accuse him of displaying an awe of the glamourous millionaires who people the dressing room at Ibrox.

His outburst at the end of the team's 2-1 defeat by St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park was unquestionably the most scathing and downright rude assessment of players by their own manager that I can recall.

There have been some crackers in the past, of course, from men like Jock Stein, Jock Wallace, Billy McNeill, Eddie Turnbull and Sir Alex Ferguson, although most have also had an in-built protection antennae that, perversely, was hoisted when they anticipated criticism of the

players from outside.

Advocaat himself has shown that contrariness on occasion, notably in Parma first time around when Lorenzo Amoruso gave away a daft penalty and Sergio Porrini a gift goal.

That night in Italy the entire press corps, which had mangled the Italians in print, had to hear the manager refuse to concede the justification for any criticism, in fact offering platitudes of understanding.

He stoutly stood by the man he had made captain of the club, Amoruso, again when his casual errors were causing much controversy among fans and critics

alike.

That is why his decision to go public (and make no mistake, it was a considered decision) in such vitriolic terms has to be looked at carefully.

There are a couple of interpretations that could be made of his remarks.

He may have meant every word of it.

Indeed, he may well have made up his mind that a whole bunch of the players who played on Sunday are revealing egos well beyond their capabilities.

On the other hand, he may have been giving them all a well deserved kick up the pants as he looks ahead to the Champions League tie in Austria tomorrow.

My guess is a mixture of both. Perhaps the 'bighead' reference particularly referred to the man on whose behalf he has been so defensive, Amoruso.

The Italian has a lethargic mien which can be redolent of arrogance and when things go wrong it can be easily identified as a

serious flaw in his play.

Certainly, it would appear that the manager was less than impressed by the row that developed between the captain and Neil McCann, who had to be restrained after it seemed that Amoruso was criticising him and others for allowing Momo Sylla through to score the winning goal for St Johnstone.

Advocaat went on to the field at the end to calm down McCann, no doubt to prevent an incident inside the dressing room.

That does not necessarily mean he was on McCann's side but may hint that he had sym-

pathy with the

Scottish internationalist.

Advocaat has a decent command of English but his first description,

quaintly, was of 'fat necks',

which he quickly accepted should have been 'big heads'' but, either way, it seems to me that he was highlighting the casualness, the less than wholehearted commitment by some players, not just Amoruso, maybe even Ronald de Boer, and perhaps also Barry

Ferguson.

He did refer after all to Dutch and Scottish internationalists, and, as Bert Konterman seemed to

me to do well enough, that left only de Boer representing

Holland.

The brilliant de Boer did look like a man conserving himself for bigger things and maybe at his stage of a fine career he feels

entitled to that much . . . but his manager will most certainly not agree.

Only the industrious McCann and an out-of-touch Billy Dodds represented Scotland national

status and, as Ferguson made a hash of three clear scoring opportunities and did not impose himself on the game as a man of his abilities should have, the finger can reasonably be pointed in his direction.

They may all have been ment-ally tuned into Austria, rather than Perth and, for that reason might have left their determination on the bench.

However, their manager is not one to tolerate reduction in effort, even if he will allow the occasional lapse in standards.

Advocaat's cynical reference to players ''doing other things during the week and thinking only of football during a game'' is so

typical of the man that it could

be the basis of his disregard for those who fail to meet his

standards.

His own obsession with the game allows no deviation to 'civilian' life, other than the odd meal out, although he retains an impish sense of humour that reveals an awareness of the world around him, and when he is depressed after a dreadful performance, such as on Sunday, he will rail at the high-salaried staff playing golf, making guest appearances, opening this and that, and generally being feted like film stars.

Football is what they do, football is what they should think about, day in day out, hour by hour.

He can do it, so can they.

When it is all put together, we

can say that the tirade he let forth on Sunday night illustrated that Advocaat will expect an enormous act of amendment by his players when they take the field in Graz tomorrow night.

Even if the 'bigheads' accusation was really more about complacency than conceit, the players under his eye ought to take it

seriously.

This is one man who is not for turning.

Similarities between him and Sir Alex Ferguson, other than a total commitment to the tasks they face in their respective posts, are not obvious, although having a close-up of the rage boiling inside the pursed lips of the Ibrox leader reminded some of us very much of the barely contained fury that could be read easily on the face of Ferguson in his heyday in this country.

In that respect there are similarities; both hate to lose but, even more, hate to see players cheat themselves, the club and the paying customers.

Two games this season, one for United and for Rangers, seem to me, none the less, to show a

bigger picture than merely the bad form of players.

United were beaten 3-1 by PSV Eindhoven in Holland in the Champions League, and Rangers, of course, were deservedly beaten by St Johnstone.

There may appear to be a world of contrast between the two games but, in one sense at least, that is not the case.

It seems to me that each of these matches illustrated the fragility of the oft-spouted theory that clubs of the domination that Manchester United hold in England and Rangers hold in Scotland should field two different teams, one for domestic contests and one for European action.

In Holland, Ferguson, with an eye on the championship clash with Arsenal coming up on the Sunday, opted to leave a few

star names on the bench, Beckham, Sheringham and Cole, and Denis Irwin altogether, for

the tie in Eindhoven four days

earlier.

He defended his decision afterwards, naturally, making the point that he had to juggle the two matches in his mind and select the more important.

It is something he has found to be imperative if there is to be any hope of succeeding in both

speheres and, as United top the English Premiership and look

certain to make it into the second round of the Champions League, he must be doing something right.

Advocaat did not have the

luxury of being able to make a conscious decision to leave out

top players for the game at

McDiarmid Park.

His squad has been so battered and shattered by injuries this

season that he had no option but to field a team that, while it contained eight international players, was clearly a long way short of his first choice.

The outcome was that both managers paid a severe penalty, not only losing but going down with no room for complaint.

In each case, although different circumstances and different

reasons for the selections, there was enough evidence, I believe, to show that the idea that a big

squad, with two entire teams

available to play in parallel competitions, is certainly untenable and even a merging of squads

big enough to provide two

teams would be seriously

flawed.

In the first instance, the notion that a kind of second-tier side would be sufficient to cope with the travails of the domestic game is not only fanciful, but insulting to the rest of the Premier League teams in both countries.

The chances of a second-tier Celtic or Rangers being good enough to waltz off with the championship, to my mind, are remote.They need their good

players to play most of the time.

It applies even more in the English Premeirship which, below the top-five level, may not be

anything special in quality, but is extremely competitive and United know well now, after the PSV experience, that gambles in the Champions League are liable to fail, too.