Can the Old firm stranglehold be broken?

[TheScarf]

6 minutes ago, tamthebam said:

How do you end up with a million out of Scottish football?

Start with 10 million 

I suppose if I won the Euromillions tomorrow it would be easier for me to put money into a club like Dunbar United or Haddington Athletic. Near enough to Edinburgh to pick up decent players, growing towns, and could probably build a new ground next to the A1 without too much planning hassle. If my largesse led to East Lothian's first Scottish League club then I'd be a legend. 

Whereas if I put my money into say, Dundee, to chase League glory there'd be plenty of torn faced guys saying I wasn't spending enough. And that wouldn't be limited to just Dundee, it applies to a lot of teams.

This might be why some prefer to put money into Cove, Kelty and Brora rather than Aberdeen, Dunfermline and Ross County.

 

They already have that.

[Raidernation]

It’s not going to change under current conditions that’s for damn sure.

[Coventry Saint]

I think it's about time we put league reconstruction on the table. Anyone got any views on that?

[D.A.F.C]

7 hours ago, TheScarf said:

Not whilst they play to the lowest common denominator of Scotland.  They thrive on bigotry, which allows them to gain more followers, hence all their games are shown on TV, so they get most of the TV money, which allows them to sign better players, which makes them finish first and second, which gets them more prize money, and European money.

it's an endless cycle which looks almost impossible to break.  They'll always have gargantuan levels of income streams compared to the 10 other teams in the league at any point in time.

Plus, if they did ever feel threatened or challenged, they'd just dangle the money carrot at the club who was challenging, and sign their 2/3 best players to sit in the stand for them every Saturday.

Spot on, not to mention the inevitable media attack from all the OF drones. They make a living from bigotry and stirring the pot.

step 1

Wow, look at this thing rangers/Celtic did.

step 2

popcorn

step 3

repeat

 

[Tutankhamen]

18 minutes ago, D.A.F.C said:

Spot on, not to mention the inevitable media attack from all the OF drones. They make a living from bigotry and stirring the pot.

step 1

Wow, look at this thing rangers/Celtic did.

step 2

popcorn

step 3

repeat

 

Thing is, if Celtic and Sevco are dross, what does that make the rest of Scottish football?

[D.A.F.C]

8 minutes ago, Tutankhamen said:

Thing is, if Celtic and Sevco are dross, what does that make the rest of Scottish football?

I didn’t say they were dross just that most of Scottish football lives off them. From the fake fans who don’t go to games to the media the stranglehold is more than just on the pitch. Reckon is someone invested 50m into Aberdeen over two seasons at the right time they would challenge.

To answer the question, more dross. Unfortunately.

[AMMjag]

Outside of Celtic and Rangers, it's going on a full generation since any other Scottish team had any kind of consistent footing in European competition - there are obvious reasons for this, but it's a big disadvantage that doesn't give much incentive for the standard of players required to stick around for long.

They've tailed off in the last couple of seasons and I'm not sure if a genuine title challenge was ever in their vision as an attainable long-term goal, but Aberdeen's approach of softly-softly, year-on-year modest improvement in McInnes's first few seasons is probably what is required to get anywhere close to the footing required to mount a challenge.

You would think the revenue and exposure that would come with a few group stage qualifications in the Europa League would give this approach a bit of impetus and encourage a more thorough, international approach in the transfer market, maybe even discouraging promising players and managers from jumping ship to the first English basket case that comes in for them.

Qualification for the new third-tier Europa League could give a more ambitious Scottish club a stronger basis to build something and think about a challenge, if they can actually find a way past the usual Amish village clubs in the preliminary rounds.

[Guest JTS98]

There's no chance anyone else is winning the league again unless there's some kind of fundamental change in structure or something.

The non-OF clubs have a double-whammy to contend with.

Firstly, there's obviously the cash. Someone else mentioned Leicester bridging the wealth gap to win the league, but that's easier done when your poorer clubs still have excellent players and a very good coach. You're not doing that with a team of free transfers against two clubs who can go out and spend millions of pounds.

Secondly, there's the issue of building a team. Nowadays it's more or less impossible for a club like Hearts to work for two or three years to build a team good enough to challenge for a title. A squad of sufficient quality would have its players picked off by English Championship sides or the Old Firm before they really got anywhere. The success the likes of Aberdeen and Dundee United had in the 80s would be impossible for clubs of that size today. They just wouldn't be able to keep their players.

So, naw. It's fucked.

[Doctor Sanchez]

Of course it will change.  All things come to pass.  

 

SEVCO will self implode again.  Anyway, them and their chums have been trying to leave for years.  Their duopoly will finish eventually.

 

Personally, i can't wait to get rid.  

[TheScarf]

22 minutes ago, JTS98 said:

There's no chance anyone else is winning the league again unless there's some kind of fundamental change in structure or something.

The non-OF clubs have a double-whammy to contend with.

Firstly, there's obviously the cash. Someone else mentioned Leicester bridging the wealth gap to win the league, but that's easier done when your poorer clubs still have excellent players and a very good coach. You're not doing that with a team of free transfers against two clubs who can go out and spend millions of pounds.

Secondly, there's the issue of building a team. Nowadays it's more or less impossible for a club like Hearts to work for two or three years to build a team good enough to challenge for a title. A squad of sufficient quality would have its players picked off by English Championship sides or the Old Firm before they really got anywhere. The success the likes of Aberdeen and Dundee United had in the 80s would be impossible for clubs of that size today. They just wouldn't be able to keep their players.

So, naw. It's fucked.

Sorry I meant to green you.

[Lex]

Of course it will change.  All things come to pass.  
 
SEVCO will self implode again.  Anyway, them and their chums have been trying to leave for years.  Their duopoly will finish eventually.
 
Personally, i can't wait to get rid.  

You’re right they’ve been trying to leave for years. They haven’t - and won’t - for the simple reason that no one else wants them.

It’s been what 35 years since a non old firm team won the league. Don’t really see how it won’t be at least another 35 years before it happens again.

The golden chance to break the duopoly was when Rangers went bust and Celtic had that joker Delia in charge. They were hopeless those couple of seasons and had of the other top half teams had a decent team and manager they could have won it. They didn’t though and in the end they didn’t even get close so here we still are.

Would be great if some random team could do a Leicester but it’s just never even nearly happened up here before. A financially doped up Hearts team had a run it for a few months about 15 years ago but even then they fell away long before the end.

[Dons_1988]

44 minutes ago, JTS98 said:

There's no chance anyone else is winning the league again unless there's some kind of fundamental change in structure or something.

The non-OF clubs have a double-whammy to contend with.

Firstly, there's obviously the cash. Someone else mentioned Leicester bridging the wealth gap to win the league, but that's easier done when your poorer clubs still have excellent players and a very good coach. You're not doing that with a team of free transfers against two clubs who can go out and spend millions of pounds.

Secondly, there's the issue of building a team. Nowadays it's more or less impossible for a club like Hearts to work for two or three years to build a team good enough to challenge for a title. A squad of sufficient quality would have its players picked off by English Championship sides or the Old Firm before they really got anywhere. The success the likes of Aberdeen and Dundee United had in the 80s would be impossible for clubs of that size today. They just wouldn't be able to keep their players.

So, naw. It's fucked.

Correct on all fronts.

Add in the fact that the competition is designed to reward consistency and endurance i.e. coming out on top over a 38 game season contended by 12 teams. The competition is essentially designed to favour the teams with the biggest squad and greatest resources.

The 15/16 season where we got 'close' to Celtic showed me just how difficult it is. We won our first 8 games but none of those games were particularly comfortable from memory (apart from maybe Tynecastle ).

Particularly away from home, every game against 'the rest' was generally a slog. I genuinely think we did remarkably well to show the consistency of results we did in that period, because most games felt like they could go either way. But when every game is like that, you will break eventually and we lost games at Fir Park, Tynecastle etc that allowed Celtic to just slip away from us.

The majority of Celtic's games are pretty comfortable, and they can afford to drop levels of performance and still win most of their games.

ETA - the biggest barrier to all of this changing is that I'm not sure there is much appetite from the rest of the Premiership clubs to change things, never mind the OF.

Edited August 10, 2020 by Dons_1988

[Guest Flash]

18 hours ago, kingjoey said:

I presume that you are counting Rangers as part of the old firm. Do you realise that since Rangers last won a trophy, Aberdeen, Ross County, Inverness Caley, St Johnstone, Hearts, Hibs, Kilmarnock and St Mirren have all won one? Where the hell does the word dominance fit in?

 

17 hours ago, Tribal Trash said:

Do you think these teams would have won these trophies if Rangers hadn't been relegated 3 divisions and didn't need to rebuild their team literally from scratch?

Since 2012 Rangers have still had the second highest budget in the country. In 8 years, they have entered 20 domestic cup competitions and have won one - the Petrofac Training Cup.

[wastecoatwilly]

19 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

The 15/16 season where we got 'close' to Celtic showed me just how difficult it is.

Aberdeen managed 71 points that season yet the lowest points total to win the league was set by Lennon's team with only 79 points.
The inevitability of dropping points every season and the consistency of a third force in Scottish football  is very possible.
With 9 games to go last season sevco had dropped 20 points, the season before that they dropped 36 points finishing on 78 points.
If a third force lost all there games against the arsecheeks they could still win the league on 90 points.
The perception of fans on here in Deila's 2 seasons Aberdeen had a chance is utter mince,Deila won the league on 92 and 86 points.
For any third force to have a chance of winning the league they need to at least break 80 points.
Aberdeen 14/15 season 75 points,15/16 season 71 points,16/17 season 76 points with sevco in the league.

[Stellaboz]

Always thought that Hearts season, can't mind the year or manager, but Romanov was there and they ran out of steam towards the end. Was that Burley?

[Dons_1988]

4 minutes ago, wastecoatwilly said:

Aberdeen managed 71 points that season yet the lowest points total to win the league was set by Lennon's team with only 79 points.
The inevitability of dropping points every season and the consistency of a third force in Scottish football  is very possible.
With 9 games to go last season sevco had dropped 20 points, the season before that they dropped 36 points finishing on 78 points.
If a third force lost all there games against the arsecheeks they could still win the league on 90 points.
The perception of fans on here in Deila's 2 seasons Aberdeen had a chance is utter mince,Deila won the league on 92 and 86 points.
For any third force to have a chance of winning the league they need to at least break 80 points.
Aberdeen 14/15 season 75 points,15/16 season 71 points,16/17 season 76 points with sevco in the league.

If a diddy side wins the league having lost all 8 games against the OF under the current set up I'll perform a forfeit of your choice.

[Comrie]

If I remember correctly a few years back Celtic had 20 times the operating budget that Aberdeen had, who have a sizeably bigger budget than teams like Accies or County.

So no, unless something incredible happens there's no chance.

[gannonball]

10 minutes ago, Comrie said:

If I remember correctly a few years back Celtic had 20 times the operating budget that Aberdeen had, who have a sizeably bigger budget than teams like Accies or County.

So no, unless something incredible happens there's no chance.

‘Operating’ budget is a bit missleading. We have a far bigger fan base and when you actually get to european groups the hoops UEFA make you jump through is  costly (worth it though obviously). Under Deila our wage bill was about 30 million at one point and I think Aberdeens was about 6/7 million. A significant gap but not quite the 100-150 million of Leicester or Atletico Madrid.

 

Edited August 10, 2020 by gannonball

[TheScarf]

1 hour ago, Stellaboz said:

Always thought that Hearts season, can't mind the year or manager, but Romanov was there and they ran out of steam towards the end. Was that Burley?

05/06. They started with Burley, then had Graeme Rix for about a month, then ended up with some Lithuanian whose name escapes me. 
 

Credit to them though, they won the SC and finished above an EBT-laden Rangers.

Edited August 10, 2020 by TheScarf

[Aubrey Maturin]

Just now, TheScarf said:

05/06. They started with Burley, then had Graeme Rix for about a month, then ended up with some Lithuanian whose name escapes me. 
 

Credit to them though, they won’t the SC and finished above an EBT-laden Rangers.

Valdas Ivanauskas was the boy.  It was a season that starred off fantasically but unfortunately the Romanov ego wrecked any title bid.  If he had left well enough alone and let Burley get on with it then who knows.  His appointment of Rix was a bizarre decision too.

At one point he signed some Brazilian midfielder without Burley knowing and insisted he played, he was rotten.

Interesting times.