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2011/2012 Season Thread


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How is the EPL a 2 team race? Don't be ridiculous just to painfully continue emphasising your point.

Just the point that in many leagues only two teams will more often than not win.

Hopefully Man City can make it a 3 horse race this year.

Not saying the league is a joke but responding to the previous post. I'm sure the same was for Sam above.

It's just common to have 2/3 dominant teams.

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Just a little look at previous EPL winners and Man Utd have 12, Chelsea and Arsenal with 3 each and Blackburn 1.

The Blackburn win was a one off in the modern day but that was funded by a lot of money.

Arsenal have gone off the boil and can't see them doin anything this year with losing big players.

Liverpool I just can't see doing much even with the money they have spent.

Man Utd look to be getting stronger and stronger as a team. It will be interesting to see how Man City do with so many stars.

I think Man Utd will win again with Man City close behind. I will go for Chelsea 3rd about 10 points behind with Spurs, Liverpool and Arsenal distant top six finishers.

The EPL is great with so much money and support funding so many teams.

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How is the EPL a 2 team race? Don't be ridiculous just to painfully continue emphasising your point.

4 teams have only ever won the Prem. And if you take away Blackburn, its basically been a rotation of Arsenal, Man U and Chelsea. Which i know is not 2 teams, but you kind of get where i am coming from.

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It works out on a more teams/more horses ratio but it's the same in the majority of leagues in Europe. I suppose the gap between the best and the rest is more prominent in Scotland though.

It's not looking great at the moment but in the past 8 years we've had two teams in the final of the Uefa Cup/Europa league and one of our 'smaller' teams on a magical journey, knocking out Champions League regulars and holding one of the world greats to a draw at home....

I don't think either of the Old Firm have the right manager in place at the moment.

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The English premier league has 20 teams in it but you can pick the 3 championship contenders at the start of each season. The SPL has 12 teams and you can pick the 2 contenders at the start of each season.

Occasionally another team will give a good push and make it interesting then fade around easter but both leagues are pretty boring as far as title challenges go.

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Last year it was fully a 4 team race. Arsenal, City and Chelsea were all in with a decent shout by March. Infact, Arsenal looked favourites to win it due to their run-in of easy home games. No one predicted Chelsea to pull it back so rapidly and be in with a shout by the time the game against United came around, and then City finished joint second. It was a pretty exciting race. One of the best for quite some time.

Every top flight has the same 2/3/4 usuals at the top. Singling out certain divisions is pointless. The Champions League tends to involve the same teams from the top countries every year, with a bit of rotation amongst the littler sides. United and Barca win their respective leagues just as much as Shaktar, Porto and CSKA do.

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It doesn't matter how much you hate them the Old Firm are in the eyes of world football representing Scottish football and for clubs of that stature to not even make the group stages of the Europa League is embarrassing. Hearts can be slightly forgiven being drawn against Spurs but they were still overrun and outclassed at Tynecastle. Especially as the 'lesser' English teams got through with relative ease against similar type opposition.

I don't know what the answer is but clearly something needs to be done with the game in Scotland.

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It doesn't matter how much you hate them the Old Firm are in the eyes of world football representing Scottish football and for clubs of that stature to not even make the group stages of the Europa League is embarrassing. Hearts can be slightly forgiven being drawn against Spurs but they were still overrun and outclassed at Tynecastle. Especially as the 'lesser' English teams got through with relative ease against similar type opposition.

I don't know what the answer is but clearly something needs to be done with the game in Scotland.

Bottom line = "resources" as they like to call it.

There is no money in Scottish football, clubs operate on a shoe-string budget. There was even chat, I think last season, that it would be better for a club not to travel for an away leg of a European tie that they were already 3-0 down in because they would save on travel/accommodation costs (and it was essentially un-winnable). That is crazy, but indicative of the financial state of the game.

Historically the OF have spent, spent, spent, but they have had to tighten their belts majorly now too because the banks will not loan them anymore cash and, as in Rangers' case, have gone some way to calling in their debt.

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Bottom line = "resources" as they like to call it.

There is no money in Scottish football, clubs operate on a shoe-string budget. There was even chat, I think last season, that it would be better for a club not to travel for an away leg of a European tie that they were already 3-0 down in because they would save on travel/accommodation costs (and it was essentially un-winnable). That is crazy, but indicative of the financial state of the game.

Historically the OF have spent, spent, spent, but they have had to tighten their belts majorly now too because the banks will not loan them anymore cash and, as in Rangers' case, have gone some way to calling in their debt.

Fair points, obviously living in England I don't keep up to date with the Scottish game as much as I used to. I know Rangers were (and still are?) really struggling financially. The Old Firm do seem to sign mostly Championship standard players nowadays.

Does the idea of the OF joining the EPL ever get bandied about these days? In theory a good idea but in reality too complicated and not workable. I couldn't ever see the English FA or UEFA letting them in, most English clubs are not in favour as it would mean two less places for English clubs. It would have a knock on effect right down the English leagues as we'd probably see four teams relegated from League Two to the toilet wasteland of the Blue Square Premier to accommodate. Cambridge were a victim of league reconstruction in the 90's when we finished 5th from bottom in what is now League One and got relegated which was grossly unfair.

The other option that used to get touted around was some kind of Atlantic League but again complicated and unworkable I think.

On the other hand, Welsh clubs are allowed in the English set up so why not the two big Scottish clubs who have clearly outgrown their own league?

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Welsh clubs aren't allowed into the English setup. Cardiff and Swansea are an accident of time as there was no Welsh league for them to play in when the clubs were formed.

On the subject of resources I read a great blogpost yesterday about SPL finances. It's mostly focussed on Hearts but takes a broader view for a lot of it:

The Swiss Ramble: Romanov's Battle For Hearts And Minds

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It doesn't matter how much you hate them the Old Firm are in the eyes of world football representing Scottish football and for clubs of that stature to not even make the group stages of the Europa League is embarrassing. Hearts can be slightly forgiven being drawn against Spurs but they were still overrun and outclassed at Tynecastle. Especially as the 'lesser' English teams got through with relative ease against similar type opposition.

I don't know what the answer is but clearly something needs to be done with the game in Scotland.

I don't get this word 'embarrassing' that you've developed a propensity to use with regards to Scottish football. Neither Celtic or Rangers currently have a squad that is genuinely worthy of any relative European success or progress, and neither were 'embarrassed' by going out at this stage. They were both beaten by teams that are better than them.

Scotland is a very small country in relative terms, and I think, if anything, both halves of the Old Firm have overachieved in European competition in the past five to ten years, and I think Tottenham only putting five goals past Hearts over two matches is an embarrassment to Tottenham and possibly, as hard as it is for me to acknowledge, an achievement for Hearts. That said, I do also recognise there are big problems in Scottish football.

The answer to the problems? I'm a numpty, so I really don't know, but eradication of the Old Firm would be a great start; they clearly want to compete elsewhere. I don't think it should be England - possibly Ireland, as both sets of supporters are often very enthusiastic in telling us how proud they are of their respective Irish roots. Perhaps they should return to their roots. That way they can play the big European guns like Shamrock Rovers if they like.

The other thing that I feel would improve the game is a dramatic reduction in ticket prices. The clubs and the SFA need to read up about supply and demand, and perhaps use that as the basis of their pricing strategy. The current price of the product - across the board - is vastly inflated in comparison to the quality of the product. Clubs rely too heavily on fan loyalty, yet the clubs rarely show loyalty to the fans. Seeing stadia less than half full week-in, week-out in the Scottish top flight is quite a big problem. The games are turgid and the average SPL atmosphere is almost non-existant.

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I think clubs who attract 60 odd thousand supporters to home games should be getting into the group stages of European competition. I mean it's not like they are losing to giants of the European football but clubs from countries with a lesser standard of football than in Scotland. So I stand by using the word embarrassing.

As for Hearts v Spurs, Spurs did the job in the first leg with that demolition job. They fielded six academy players last night so actually a 0-0 draw was a decent result.

Ticket prices is getting a big issue. A northern woman (can't remember which team she supported) was waxing lyrical about how QPR are charging 72 quid for a forthcoming away game and it was 50 quid for Bolton supporters opening day of the season (they got their moneys worth mind!). However I believe the new regime at QPR are going to reduce ticket prices don't know if this covers away supporters mind.

Thing is footballers (or their agents) are getting paid vastly overpriced sums for their level of talent. And Man City continue to raise the bar. I admire Blackpool for implementing a wage cap in the EPL last season not that it did them much good. However going for broke doesn't necessarily mean you won't avoid the drop!

I too am a football numpty, I support Cambridge Ufuckingnited for crying out loud! We continue to be a shambles off the pitch although at last we are cutting our cloth accordingly which means mid table mediocrity for the couple of thousand diehards who regularly show up at home matches.

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The embarrassment for me is that people up here walk about thinking teams like Maribour and Sion should be lying down to the old firm, we just cannot compete financially with any league in anywhere now a days. Look at Celtic, their top defender is an old Swed who 5 years ago wouldnt have got on the Celtic bench, and Mulgrew, who they chucked because he was shit, and who then struggled to find any real form playing for the Dons week in week out. Rangers are singing wingers from the spanish second division and American internationals playing in Sweden, again players who 5 years ago would not have been near the bench.

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The embarrassment for me is that people up here walk about thinking teams like Maribour and Sion should be lying down to the old firm, we just cannot compete financially with any league in anywhere now a days. Look at Celtic, their top defender is an old Swed who 5 years ago wouldnt have got on the Celtic bench, and Mulgrew, who they chucked because he was shit, and who then struggled to find any real form playing for the Dons week in week out. Rangers are singing wingers from the spanish second division and American internationals playing in Sweden, again players who 5 years ago would not have been near the bench.

I don't think they should be lying down to the Old Firm but the OF should be beating teams like that surely? Actually the state of the game in Scotland is possibly much worse than I realize....

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I think clubs who attract 60 odd thousand supporters to home games should be getting into the group stages of European competition. I mean it's not like they are losing to giants of the European football but clubs from countries with a lesser standard of football than in Scotland. So I stand by using the word embarrassing.

Think about it this way Del, and this is where my obsession of FM comes into good use. Qualifying for the champs league group stages and nothing else makes a club around 6m, winning the SPL and TV money for a season comes to a total of only 3m, if you win the league cup its about 200k Scottish cup slightly more, so for a treble winning season up here a team can make at the very most 5m when you take tickets, and tv money into the equation. Its impossible for our teams to compete when making practically no prize or TV money for a season, even with 60,000 people in your stadium its almost impossible to compete and break even.

We fucked up years ago, when Sky first started offering big TV deals and we had that fucking idiot in charge he turned down Sky because he wanted to launch an SPL tv channel, at that time our league was still in good nick and people wanted to watch it. We lost out on hundreds of millions because of that and we have never recovered.

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The other thing that I feel would improve the game is a dramatic reduction in ticket prices. The clubs and the SFA need to read up about supply and demand, and perhaps use that as the basis of their pricing strategy. The current price of the product - across the board - is vastly inflated in comparison to the quality of the product. Clubs rely too heavily on fan loyalty, yet the clubs rarely show loyalty to the fans. Seeing stadia less than half full week-in, week-out in the Scottish top flight is quite a big problem. The games are turgid and the average SPL atmosphere is almost non-existant.

Absolutely. Clubs rely on maximising the money from what few fans still turn up rather than getting the same amount from more fans in the ground. Drop the ticket prices and more people will go to games.

It's totally not worth paying over 20 to get into Pittodrie most weeks, especially when you add on travel to Aberdeen and back plus food and drink for the day.

A full stadium giving the team their backing is surely worth more in the long run than a mostly empty stadium which makes slightly more gate money that day.

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