I FELT like I was coming back to Scotland as an outsider, having to learn about the football here again, and slowly and surely I've built up a picture of the strengths and weaknesses. Six months have passed now and people have been asking me if I've enjoyed it: well, of course. It's been overwhelmingly positive, and not just because things have gone so well at Motherwell.

It was never easy to do any homework on Scottish football while I was still living in my southern outpost in Brighton and it wasn't for the lack of trying. Media coverage of the Scottish game is minimal down south, even of the competition which is our pride and joy, the SPL.

Their own Premier League dominates everything in England and its wee brother, The Championship, consumes most of the remainder of the media attention and public interest. That's understandable because The Championship is the fourth best-supported league in Europe. Most football fans south of the border have no idea how the SPL works. Something like the top six/bottom six split is a mystery to them.

One of the first things I tried to assess when I came back to live and work in Scotland was where the SPL would fit into the English system in terms of the standard of football. It's my belief that only Celtic and Rangers would hold their own in the Premier League. I don't think they would be able to compete with the big four but they would be respectable, and wouldn't be down among the pack fighting relegation. Over time their resources and financial income would grow and given the support base they have they would be able to challenge that top four.

As for the rest of the SPL clubs, most of the rest of us would comfortably survive in The Championship. On a good day several of our SPL teams would be promotion contenders.

I've been impressed by the quality of preparation teams receive in the SPL. It is obvious that teams are well coached.

Within the non-Old Firm clubs I have seen enough quality players to believe that a composite team could be put together that would cruise The Championship: players like Steven Fletcher and David Murphy at Hibs, Barry Robson at Dundee United, Jamie Smith at Aberdeen, Andrew Driver and Christophe Berra at Hearts. There are several decent goalkeepers. As for the rest of the 11, you could easily fill it up with Motherwell players And then there is the media. The SPL is not so different from the English Premier League in the sense that a very small number of clubs receive the bulk of the attention. Here it is Celtic and Rangers; in England it is Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea.

England is a far bigger place than Scotland so teams still receive a lot of local coverage across the regions down there. Even as a former Celtic player I had forgotten the extent to which the two Glasgow giants dominate things in Scotland. It has been interesting for me to be reintroduced to Scottish football and I have to admit that at times I've felt as though there was some sort of embargo on anyone outside the Old Firm winning the league title, such is the attitude of most pundits. Sorry, but I just don't see it like that.

You might say it is unlikely but I think that the big two's continued presence in European football this season does make them vulnerable. What it will require is the football equivalent of "tactical voting" from the rest of us. We all need to be taking points off them so someone can come through and challenge all the way to the end.

The other SPL clubs would have to conspire against Celtic and Rangers; and by that I mean conspire in the sense of believing that there is an opportunity to prove the critics wrong and for someone else to win the league.

From the recent history books it seems that periodically a team does emerge that splits Celtic and Rangers but no-one really comes through to challenge for the top spot itself. For one of us to achieve that we would all have to be drawing with and beating the Old Firm. It would require a sustained effort from more than one club.

This season has seen Celtic and Rangers drop 26 league points between them going into this weekend's fixture card. That's more than in previous seasons and suggests that the winning points total will not be as high as normal, probably around 80 points or so. The lower the better.

If the rest of us are prepared to make the big two fight and one of them emerges as champions then they will have earned their title. Call me naive, but on the evidence I've seen so far I am not prepared to accept that is a foregone conclusion. I can still look at the league with an outsider's eye and I really do believe that the other teams are better than they think. They don't give themselves enough credit.

It annoys me when people talk about the rest of the clubs "aiming to finish third". That suggests a level of acceptance that is unhealthy. It's about having the belief in yourself that you can do it. Why not aim to finish first?