SPL preview: Is he still there?

Decreed the fastest player in European football™ upon his arrival from Racing Genk, the Bosnian international was supposed to be totemic of Hearts' heightened status. For their sake, let's hope not. One of 11 players signed in the transfer window, the bold Vlad eventually consented to give the Belgians around £850,000 for the 27-year-old. Yet recent murmurs from across the North Sea suggest much of that fee has not been received and, when pressed, Hearts waved a receipt and demanded they take Beslija back. After making just three starts, supporters have questioned not only his ability but his mythical pace. The more charitable suggest he needs time to settle into a foreign culture, but Scottish football is not renowned for its altruism. Just ask the Hearts player who allegedly tried to throttle Beslija . . .

Jose-Karl Pierre-Fanfan
The Frenchman may not be at Ibrox for much longer, given his desire for regular first-team football, but despite a horrific first season in Scotland we may not have seen the last of him quite yet. Fanfan has claimed Alex McLeish had little to do with his acquisition and 'didnae fancy him' but things really started to go wrong when he tipped Rangers to win the Champions League.
Now, though, one of his compatriots has stepped into the manager's brogues and, having surveyed the agricultural nature of some the centre-backs in his squad, Paul Le Guen has offered Fanfan the chance to earn a reprieve. Whether he takes it is a matter for conjecture.

David Marshall
That night in the Camp Nou, when Barcelona simply could not breach the young Scot's goal, seems a long time ago. Marshall perhaps suffered more than any Celtic player in the wake of the Artmedia Bratislava debacle, shipping four against Motherwell in the first game of last season before being consigned to the bench in favour of Artur Boruc. While he is still only 21 – practically foetal in goalkeeping terms – Marshall runs the risk of being usurped by his contemporaries. He has made noises about a loan move, but Gordon Strachan is unwilling to release him without cover. Another year of festering could see him join the growing list of vanishing Scottish keepers.

Denzil Theobald
The "new Dwight Yorke" acquitted himself credibly as a key component of Trinidad & Tobago's World Cup side during the summer but since signing in January, Theobald has never left the Falkirk bench. The ever-prosaic John Hughes suggested that wee Denzil struggled on a cold Tuesday night in Inverness but even during the . . . er . . . balmy days of May, the 24-year-old could be seen huddled in the dugout with a tartan shawl draped across his lap. A knee injury sustained in Germany has prevented pre-season participation and given that he appears to be receiving treatment from the Trinidad & Tobago FA doctor in his homeland, his return seems some way off yet.

Stevie Crawford
Crawford has never been the same since he lost Craig Brewster as a strike partner. As recently as November 2004 – the month Brewster escaped Dunfermline for Inverness – the 32-year-old was Scotland's first-choice front man, but now, three clubs later, Crawford finds himself struggling for a place in Aberdeen's squad. An aborted spell at Plymouth led to a move to Dundee United but, less than a year later, he exited with a large severance cheque in his pocket and the fans' invective burning his ears. His rapidly-developing reputation as a striker who no longer scores goals has been cemented at Pittodrie.

Taken from the Herald