Both us and them being very poor - to the extent that Hearts were still in with a decent shout until a fair bit into that season. The mentally challengeds were actually bottom after 2 games IIRC and lost at home to Dunfermline.
We were stop start. Negri looked like he'd carry us to the title but the successive European fùck ups really knocked our confidence and we couldn't get much consistency. That said, I still maintain that had we played (and beat) them on the original date - we could have landed a massive psychological blow to them very early on and give ourselves a massive boost to the bargain. Instead we ended up being done out of a win in the re-arranged fixture which gave them a boost.
The Gaffer was too loyal to the "old guard" - as mentioned, Goram was out of shape, Gazza wasn't fit, McCoist was struggling and Laudrup wasn't quite the player he had been the previous 3 seasons. We were unlucky with Amo, resulting in Richard Gough being hastily bought back from the States.
The boast about having "one team for the league and one for Europe" were embarrassingly unfounded. We played the mentally challenged reserves at Ibrox on the Saturday before Princess Diana's death - our reserve side that day would beat the current squad (Albertz, Gattuso and Vidmar played that day - Vidmar scored a peach) yet they could only manage a draw against a 9-man mentally challenged side full of kids.
Beating them in the cup and the league in consecutive weeks restored the belief that 10 was coming.
Silly points dropped at Killie (Bjorklund/ Goram fùck up, drew 2-2), beat by Dundee United at Tannadump (Goram fùck up, lost 1-2), bottle-job at Motherwell after being 1 up (lost 1-2) and final nail was the 0-1 loss to Killie at Ibrox. The mentally challengeds did slip up at Dunfermline the next day to give us hope but really was out of our hands by then.
Being at the beam-back on the final day but it really was in hope rather than expectation. Horrible day and a eerie atmosphere when it was confirmed that it wasn't going to happen.
The final against Hearts was just a sickening post script to a shite season. That team did not deserve to leave us without one last trophy.