Scott Brown So Far.

[minijc]

1 minute ago, Big Hat Logan said:

Do you think that owners of every club set out to make losses and not win anything? That every club on the planet doesn’t want to sign unknown players for fuck all and sell them for huge profits? That people simply think “fuck it let’s just set out to fail”?

It’s for charity. Not only have you got a loser mentality you want to deprive dying children.

Hahaha you are demented, why would I take the bet, right now no team outside of Celtic or Rangers are looking to, or even trying to win the league, they are happy to accept their place and that's the wrong mentality.

[Andy_123]

The entire Scottish football structure is set up to help maintain the current status quo.

Until that changes nobody will get near Celtic or Rangers. Unless some lunatic decides to throw £100m+ away doing it.

The league is unrealistic, but we should definitely be looking to win the cups far more often than we do.

[Byrne Baby Byrne]

2 hours ago, minijc said:

Going from League 1 to the PL in 8 years is pretty impressive for a club that size with one of the smallest wage budgets in the league.  A lot of our fans love to use the budget as an excuse, Brentford are showing that if you work smarter, marginal gains and stick to a structure you can punch above your weight, which over time helps to cut the gap in spending.

Look at the 2019/20 season where they finished 3rd and made the play off final, losing to Fulham who had a wage bill of 54.3m, Brentfords wage bill for that season was 17.1m, Leeds (31.3m), West Brom (92.2m).  Brentford finished above 14 teams who all had much larger wage bills than them, with some having way more money to spend to attract players in the first place.

I have to agree. The difference in wages between us and the weegies is astronomical compared to what Brentford are dealing with.... but we have to remember that to mount a decent challenge we don't even need to be beating them all the time. We really just need to beat the rest of the teams in the league regularly. We certainly haven't been doing that recently.

Edit - although I still dont think this is the magic recipe to win the league. I just mean get us closer/competing and win some cups. Which would be rare.

[Big Hat Logan]

56 minutes ago, minijc said:

Hahaha you are demented, why would I take the bet, right now no team outside of Celtic or Rangers are looking to, or even trying to win the league, they are happy to accept their place and that's the wrong mentality.

No team is trying to win the league other than the old firm? Are you sure?

22 minutes ago, Byrne Baby Byrne said:

I have to agree. The difference in wages between us and the weegies is astronomical compared to what Brentford are dealing with.... but we have to remember that to mount a decent challenge we don't even need to be beating them all the time. We really just need to beat the rest of the teams in the league regularly. We certainly haven't been doing that recently.

Edit - although I still dont think this is the magic recipe to win the league. I just mean get us closer/competing and win some cups. Which would be rare.

No, we have to beat everyone in the league including the old firm to mount a challenge. We would have to go to Celtic park and ibrox and win to be anywhere near it.

[Big Hat Logan]

4 minutes ago, Roberto said:

Loud noises and words.

Is that the best you can contribute to this?

[Poodler]

1 hour ago, Big Hat Logan said:

Are fans of other clubs this delusional or just ours? 

Huns seem to think there’s only been one rangers! 

[Byrne Baby Byrne]

5 minutes ago, Big Hat Logan said:

No team is trying to win the league other than the old firm? Are you sure?

No, we have to beat everyone in the league including the old firm to mount a challenge. We would have to go to Celtic park and ibrox and win to be anywhere near it.

I think with the resources we have available we should be able to beat the other 9 teams regularly and take 4-7 points each off Rangers & Celtic. We are nowhere near that just now, but that would be enough to see @Tord31 atleast create a new points challenge thread!

[minijc]

4 minutes ago, Big Hat Logan said:

No team is trying to win the league other than the old firm? Are you sure?

No, we have to beat everyone in the league including the old firm to mount a challenge. We would have to go to Celtic park and ibrox and win to be anywhere near it.

Yip I'm sure of it, you've got us, Hearts and Hibs who are setting out at the start of the season for 3rd place at best.  It's far too easy to sit there and go "Celtic and Rangers have more money than we'll ever have so we won't challenge them" when a change in thinking and approach could see those 3 teams, over time work towards getting closer to them and each team could do it with a sustainable model that avoids plunging themselves in to debt.

Right now we have 5 players that I would class as sellable assets that could go for very good money, there's a good chance two of them are away in the summer now this is where being smarter with our recruitment makes their departures easier to deal with but again the structure has to be there and given now badly we messed up in the summer we've got to reshape it.

You can scoff at the Brentford model but it is allowing them to punch above their weight and gain success, I'm not daft enough to think that us following it exactly would mean we instantly win the league but over time if done correctly we will start to see us close the gap.  Recruitment has to improve as the last 6 years has been relatively poor, our coaching needs improved, we also need to bring in more analysts and get better sports scientists in too.

[super_al]

56 minutes ago, minijc said:

Yip I'm sure of it, you've got us, Hearts and Hibs who are setting out at the start of the season for 3rd place at best.  It's far too easy to sit there and go "Celtic and Rangers have more money than we'll ever have so we won't challenge them" when a change in thinking and approach could see those 3 teams, over time work towards getting closer to them and each team could do it with a sustainable model that avoids plunging themselves in to debt.

Right now we have 5 players that I would class as sellable assets that could go for very good money, there's a good chance two of them are away in the summer now this is where being smarter with our recruitment makes their departures easier to deal with but again the structure has to be there and given now badly we messed up in the summer we've got to reshape it.

You can scoff at the Brentford model but it is allowing them to punch above their weight and gain success, I'm not daft enough to think that us following it exactly would mean we instantly win the league but over time if done correctly we will start to see us close the gap.  Recruitment has to improve as the last 6 years has been relatively poor, our coaching needs improved, we also need to bring in more analysts and get better sports scientists in too.

I agree with this.

[thurso]

The only way I see is getting close to winning the league is to do it by getting the best youth players coming through our system as we will never be able to compete with Celtic and sevco when it comes to money spent on players and there wages. 
 

The problem with that tho is keeping the young players until they are moulded into a winning team as you can see with Ramsey as soon as a player comes through and does well all the talk as about selling them and the money they could make else where. 
 

It would be easy to go out and spend one or two million on a player but the problem with them is they want the type of wages each week which that we couldn’t afford 

[Byrne Baby Byrne]

36 minutes ago, thurso said:

The only way I see is getting close to winning the league is to do it by getting the best youth players coming through our system as we will never be able to compete with Celtic and sevco when it comes to money spent on players and there wages. 
 

The problem with that tho is keeping the young players until they are moulded into a winning team as you can see with Ramsey as soon as a player comes through and does well all the talk as about selling them and the money they could make else where. 
 

It would be easy to go out and spend one or two million on a player but the problem with them is they want the type of wages each week which that we couldn’t afford 

Bit of truth in this, I'll give you that. Grimmer, Fraser & Fyvie all left for pennies and made minimal impact in the team. A few years service then sold on for decent money is whats needed. The McKenna model! First you need to get players of that caliber coming through.

I think everyone knows this though. Hardly rocket science, its just not very easy.

[Ten Caat]

53 minutes ago, thurso said:

The only way I see is getting close to winning the league is to do it by getting the best youth players coming through our system as we will never be able to compete with Celtic and sevco when it comes to money spent on players and there wages. 
 

The problem with that tho is keeping the young players until they are moulded into a winning team as you can see with Ramsey as soon as a player comes through and does well all the talk as about selling them and the money they could make else where. 
 

It would be easy to go out and spend one or two million on a player but the problem with them is they want the type of wages each week which that we couldn’t afford 

And wouldn't really make much of a difference to us other than maybe guaranteeing 3rd or 4th place at best. The arse cheeks are spending northwards of £5m on players and generally you get what you pay for. 

But even hoovering up all the best Scottish youth players (an unlikely scenario anyway as the chances are a west coast based youngster is still going to prefer signing for one of the bigot brothers over us and Hibs and Hearts are probably equally as attractive as us to kids from the east coast) isn't going to guarantee anything at all. If you get 2 players actually "making it" out of every age group you 'd be doing exceptionally well. More likely one makes it from every second age group. What occurred for us in the late 70s/early 80s was unprecedented and unlikely to ever be repeated anywhere, never mind with us a second time.

And as you say, retaining those that do make it is another problem, given the money they can make down south even at some utterly dross EFL1 clubs. Did sevco really think Wright was an outstanding talent? Or did they take a bit of a punt on a player who they knew they could afford to pay wages to we wouldn't match but in their terms absolutely cheap as chips. If he makes the step up great, if not they're at least depriving us of a player who might harm them occasionally in matches against them. 

[Big Hat Logan]

54 minutes ago, minijc said:

Yip I'm sure of it, you've got us, Hearts and Hibs who are setting out at the start of the season for 3rd place at best.  It's far too easy to sit there and go "Celtic and Rangers have more money than we'll ever have so we won't challenge them" when a change in thinking and approach could see those 3 teams, over time work towards getting closer to them and each team could do it with a sustainable model that avoids plunging themselves in to debt.

Right now we have 5 players that I would class as sellable assets that could go for very good money, there's a good chance two of them are away in the summer now this is where being smarter with our recruitment makes their departures easier to deal with but again the structure has to be there and given now badly we messed up in the summer we've got to reshape it.

You can scoff at the Brentford model but it is allowing them to punch above their weight and gain success, I'm not daft enough to think that us following it exactly would mean we instantly win the league but over time if done correctly we will start to see us close the gap.  Recruitment has to improve as the last 6 years has been relatively poor, our coaching needs improved, we also need to bring in more analysts and get better sports scientists in too.

So your answer is to throw even more money at it by getting better staff in? Will that win us the league?

[Big Hat Logan]

1 hour ago, Ten Caat said:

And wouldn't really make much of a difference to us other than maybe guaranteeing 3rd or 4th place at best. The arse cheeks are spending northwards of £5m on players and generally you get what you pay for. 

But even hoovering up all the best Scottish youth players (an unlikely scenario anyway as the chances are a west coast based youngster is still going to prefer signing for one of the bigot brothers over us and Hibs and Hearts are probably equally as attractive as us to kids from the east coast) isn't going to guarantee anything at all. If you get 2 players actually "making it" out of every age group you 'd be doing exceptionally well. More likely one makes it from every second age group. What occurred for us in the late 70s/early 80s was unprecedented and unlikely to ever be repeated anywhere, never mind with us a second time.

And as you say, retaining those that do make it is another problem, given the money they can make down south even at some utterly dross EFL1 clubs. Did sevco really think Wright was an outstanding talent? Or did they take a bit of a punt on a player who they knew they could afford to pay wages to we wouldn't match but in their terms absolutely cheap as chips. If he makes the step up great, if not they're at least depriving us of a player who might harm them occasionally in matches against them. 

For once you are absolutely spot on, Penfold.

[minijc]

10 minutes ago, Big Hat Logan said:

So your answer is to throw even more money at it by getting better staff in? Will that win us the league?

Use our budget more wisely to invest in other areas that need improved like youth coaches, strength and conditioning coaches, scouting and analytics, it wouldn't even take a lot of money and over time it would pay for itself.

Much rather that than continuing to do the same shit over and over, keeping the same people around the club for the sake of it, buying from the same diluted markets and failing to look for marginal gains in some areas.

[Big Hat Logan]

6 hours ago, Roberto said:

It's a lot better than anything else that has been contributed the last few hours, yes.

Is the truth unpalatable for you?

[Big Hat Logan]

1 hour ago, minijc said:

Use our budget more wisely to invest in other areas that need improved like youth coaches, strength and conditioning coaches, scouting and analytics, it wouldn't even take a lot of money and over time it would pay for itself.

Much rather that than continuing to do the same shit over and over, keeping the same people around the club for the sake of it, buying from the same diluted markets and failing to look for marginal gains in some areas.

Do you not think that every single club in the country tries to use its budget “more wisely”? You can analyse data until the cows come home, it still doesn’t mean you can afford to sign players that are the difference between winning the league and third place, nor does it mean you can keep hold of any good youth prospects because we can’t compete with wages in the lower tiers in England. Same goes for coaching staff, any decent ones will always be picked up by the top clubs because money. It’s all about money now.

It’s a hard truth but we will never win the league again unless someone pours crazy money into the club. 

[shut up meg]

6 hours ago, Byrne Baby Byrne said:

I think with the resources we have available we should be able to beat the other 9 teams regularly and take 4-7 points each off Rangers & Celtic. We are nowhere near that just now, but that would be enough to see @Tord31 atleast create a new points challenge thread!

If we expand the league and only play them once home and away, that would give a non weegie team a slightly better chance of mounting a challenge.

[DelMonte]

For once I agree with BHL. Fucking hate myself for it. 
 

On the topic of our youth system - I think ours is very good. Seemed to have produced a few decent players the past few years.

[minijc]

57 minutes ago, Big Hat Logan said:

Do you not think that every single club in the country tries to use its budget “more wisely”? You can analyse data until the cows come home, it still doesn’t mean you can afford to sign players that are the difference between winning the league and third place, nor does it mean you can keep hold of any good youth prospects because we can’t compete with wages in the lower tiers in England. Same goes for coaching staff, any decent ones will always be picked up by the top clubs because money. It’s all about money now.

It’s a hard truth but we will never win the league again unless someone pours crazy money into the club. 

There are other ways to bridge the gap though, this is my point and it comes down to the club thinking and acting differently.  If we can get our recruitment sorted along with the youth side of things continuing to produce decent/good talent we will be able to cash in, the club need to be smart and hold out for their true value and not just accept any old amount for the sake of it.

Looking at the team, Ramsay and Ferguson are the two that will most likely move on next, if the club get what they value them at that's close to £10m it's what we then do with that is what's important, invest a chunk of it in to the playing squad for replacements then throw another chunk at other areas like I've already mentioned.  That won't win us the league overnight, it may not even help us win the league ever but it certainly has the club moving in a more productive and sustainable way which over time will see us continuing to produce good young player and cash in on them giving us more money to use on the team.

[minijc]

1 minute ago, Millertime said:

We had the chance to make big money on Ramsay and ruined it, that ship has sailed 

Not quite true and the ship hasn't sailed. 

[Millertime]

9 hours ago, aberdeen1970 said:

Appoint good coaches. 

Buy young. 

Develop your own.

Use any spare cash for a wee bit of stardust in choice positions. 

Do that consistently and you'll perform better than most but it still won't guarantee you anything with such a financial divide.   

Bottom line is that everyone is suffering after decades of bending over to the 2 big clubs, old and new and the structure is set up to sustain that model so it becomes an ever increasing self defeating philosophy for anyone other than those two. 

 

 

Those 4 things you listed

Do you genuinely think any teams set out to try and not do that?

[Millertime]

1 hour ago, minijc said:

There are other ways to bridge the gap though, this is my point and it comes down to the club thinking and acting differently.  If we can get our recruitment sorted along with the youth side of things continuing to produce decent/good talent we will be able to cash in, the club need to be smart and hold out for their true value and not just accept any old amount for the sake of it.

Looking at the team, Ramsay and Ferguson are the two that will most likely move on next, if the club get what they value them at that's close to £10m it's what we then do with that is what's important, invest a chunk of it in to the playing squad for replacements then throw another chunk at other areas like I've already mentioned.  That won't win us the league overnight, it may not even help us win the league ever but it certainly has the club moving in a more productive and sustainable way which over time will see us continuing to produce good young player and cash in on them giving us more money to use on the team.

We had the chance to make big money on Ramsay and ruined it, that ship has sailed 

[aberdeen1970]

16 minutes ago, Millertime said:

Those 4 things you listed

Do you genuinely think any teams set out to try and not do that?

No but you need to get all 4 right at the same time. 

And that's the hard bit 

[Millertime]

28 minutes ago, minijc said:

Not quite true and the ship hasn't sailed. 

He has been bo bite since, hopefully he recaptures the form

[Byrne Baby Byrne]

2 hours ago, shut up meg said:

If we expand the league and only play them once home and away, that would give a non weegie team a slightly better chance of mounting a challenge.

Yeah it’s also likely more fans would attend games because they’d be more unique. I have to admit I’ve hardly attended games this season yet I did make the effort for Qarabag and Edinburgh City. Sums it up, sick of seeing the same games 3, 4 or even up to 7 times a season. 
 

but we need 90 Glasgow derbies apparently 

 

[JamieMT]

There's no one factor which contributes to our lack of success or the dominance of Celtic & Rangers/Sevco. But for me, mentality goes a long way.

Look across Europe and almost every league features super club(s) who dominate and their dominance is in no small way linked to their wealth. Where Scotland differs is we don't see a blip.

We were the last team outwith Glasgow to win the title since '85. In England the giants have been Utd, City, Arsenal, Chelsea & Liverpool, but Leeds & Leicester have bucked the trend and won the title during that period. In Spain the giants are Real & Barca, but Atletico, Deportivo & Valencia have done the same. In Germany the big guns are Bayern & Dortmund, yet Bremen, Kaiserslautern, Stuttgart & Wolfsburg have won titles. In Italy, Juve & the Milan clubs reign supreme, but it hasn't stopped Lazio, Napoli, Roma & Sampdoria lifting the Serie A during the same time period.

Look further and this is true of almost every if not every league bar our own. In Scotland we play for third before a ball's even been kicked, a guarantee of failure. And all too many of our players (and this is true of the other non-Old Firm clubs also) are far too enthralled by Celtic or Rangers. They aspire not to beat them, simply to play for them.

For things to change it needs to start with a believe that things needs to change. Not among the fans, but within the clubs. A belief that something other than third is achievable. A belief that Celtic and/or Rangers depending on which team you support, is not the divine order. A belief that any aspirations you have for on field success can be achieved whilst playing for one of the other clubs. A belief at board level that investing (wisely) will bring reward and a belief that (and this one is for you Mr Milne) a continuation of the current voting structure can only be detrimental to the league as a whole.

[alscotoz]

20 hours ago, Andy_123 said:

The entire Scottish football structure is set up to help maintain the current status quo.

Until that changes nobody will get near Celtic or Rangers. Unless some lunatic decides to throw £100m+ away doing it.

The league is unrealistic, but we should definitely be looking to win the cups far more often than we do.

Let's say that lunatic existed.

Football is so bent in Scotland, the GFA would find a reason to outlaw their input.

Game's a bogey.

[Big Hat Logan]

9 hours ago, JamieMT said:

There's no one factor which contributes to our lack of success or the dominance of Celtic & Rangers/Sevco. But for me, mentality goes a long way.

Look across Europe and almost every league features super club(s) who dominate and their dominance is in no small way linked to their wealth. Where Scotland differs is we don't see a blip.

We were the last team outwith Glasgow to win the title since '85. In England the giants have been Utd, City, Arsenal, Chelsea & Liverpool, but Leeds & Leicester have bucked the trend and won the title during that period. In Spain the giants are Real & Barca, but Atletico, Deportivo & Valencia have done the same. In Germany the big guns are Bayern & Dortmund, yet Bremen, Kaiserslautern, Stuttgart & Wolfsburg have won titles. In Italy, Juve & the Milan clubs reign supreme, but it hasn't stopped Lazio, Napoli, Roma & Sampdoria lifting the Serie A during the same time period.

Look further and this is true of almost every if not every league bar our own. In Scotland we play for third before a ball's even been kicked, a guarantee of failure. And all too many of our players (and this is true of the other non-Old Firm clubs also) are far too enthralled by Celtic or Rangers. They aspire not to beat them, simply to play for them.

For things to change it needs to start with a believe that things needs to change. Not among the fans, but within the clubs. A belief that something other than third is achievable. A belief that Celtic and/or Rangers depending on which team you support, is not the divine order. A belief that any aspirations you have for on field success can be achieved whilst playing for one of the other clubs. A belief at board level that investing (wisely) will bring reward and a belief that (and this one is for you Mr Milne) a continuation of the current voting structure can only be detrimental to the league as a whole.

Here we go again, all it takes is belief to win the league ?

The entirety of Scottish football needs a complete overhaul and then huge investment in one of the non-OF clubs for someone else to win the league. You can believe in Santa, doesn’t mean he exists.

[Ten Caat]

7 minutes ago, Big Hat Logan said:

Here we go again, all it takes is belief to win the league ?

The entirety of Scottish football needs a complete overhaul and then huge investment in one of the non-OF clubs for someone else to win the league. You can believe in Santa, doesn’t mean he exists.

Spot on