36 years, how much longer?

[Hoose Rice]

Just now, Lyle Lanley said:

Champions League winners in 2027 it is. 

100%.  Failure cant be an option.  Darren McGregor manager also. 

[Alert Mongoose]

Just now, Hoose Rice said:

Aberdeen again? 

No. All teams outwith the Old Firm* sign a contract (a hidden one like the old Rangers) to put all their best players to one team and agree to lose to that team all season. Champions League money is then distributed equally among partners.

[Hoose Rice]

7 minutes ago, Lyle Lanley said:

If you kept Burley in charge, you would have won the league imo. 
 

We were 15 points behind Celtic and drawn 13 games that season. If we won seven of those 13 drawn games we would have won the league. 

Hearts had the core of their squad there, Gordon, Pressley, Hartley then they got Fysas, Skacel, Jankauskis (sp) and genuinely looked unstoppable.   Rangers where pap and they never sacked Burley the league would have been theirs.  But they did  2 weeks later we pumped them.  Fuckin stoater of a game.  Back in the saturday afternoon derbies in the old East. 

[Hoose Rice]

5 minutes ago, Alert Mongoose said:

No. All teams outwith the Old Firm* sign a contract (a hidden one like the old Rangers) to put all their best players to one team and agree to lose to that team all season. Champions League money is then distributed equally among partners.

Yeah Im in (fk knows who we give mind) who said no against? The sheep have history.  

[Girth]

8 hours ago, pozbaird said:

As long as we’re not waiting on Morton to get to the top flight then there’s a flicker of hope.

What will happen first - non OF title winner or Morten to reach the top flight?

Edited July 24, 2022 by Girth

[VincentGuerin]

54 minutes ago, Lyle Lanley said:

If you kept Burley in charge, you would have won the league imo. 
 

 

41 minutes ago, Hoose Rice said:

Hearts had the core of their squad there, Gordon, Pressley, Hartley then they got Fysas, Skacel, Jankauskis (sp) and genuinely looked unstoppable.   Rangers where pap and they never sacked Burley the league would have been theirs.

Nah. We wouldn't have won it in 2005/06. The team had come together too late to have a proper pre-season and the squad was too thin. We did have the best starting eleven, but that doesn't win you a league.

We could have won it in 2006/07 if we'd kept the band together and built properly. 2005/06 we were always going to run out of steam. We'd have been much closer without the madness, but winning it that season was always unlikely.

[RossBFaeDundee]

If this Hearts team had been playing against Pedro's Rangers and Deila's/Lennon's Celtic, I reckon they would've had an outside shot. Both cheeks are currently at their strongest in roughly a decade or so though, so it's definitely not happening anytime soon. It's frustrating that Aberdeen only got a decent attempt together in 17/18 when Rangers were already back in the league, had they managed it earlier they could've properly had a crack at Celtic I think.

Eventually the law of averages will have both clubs making bad appointments, bad signings and struggling with their fanbases again. If these instances happen at the same time for both clubs, and another club (likely only Hearts/Hibs/Aberdeen) gets it completely right (which 2 of those 3 are clearly not doing these days) then again, there's an outside shot. It'll take everything going right though, so it'll probably take a good couple decades. It'll happen though, I believe it... as long as it's not fucking United, I'd celebrate it.

[Hoose Rice]

7 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

 

Nah. We wouldn't have won it in 2005/06. The team had come together too late to have a proper pre-season and the squad was too thin. We did have the best starting eleven, but that doesn't win you a league.

We could have won it in 2006/07 if we'd kept the band together and built properly. 2005/06 we were always going to run out of steam. We'd have been much closer without the madness, but winning it that season was always unlikely.

You could argue Burley and the guy he brought with him, name escapes me, the guy who brought in Skacel and Bednar could have strengthened in Jan instead of signing shite like ironically LJ. 

[Theyellowbox]

It can be done, but it need a team to pull away from the rest to be a consistent 3rd place side for a few years and able to maximise on player sales when they inevitably comes.

Say Hearts or Aberdeen for example, were able to get good money for prized assets (beyond what Rangers or Celtic would pay for a player in scotland) and were able to recruit very well, then you'd possibly get them winning most games outside the big 2. If Rangers and Celtic draw a couple and say win one each vs each other, then they stifle each other and so long as you only drop points in 5-6 of the games vs the rest, then they'd have a shot.

Key is being in that gap between 4th and the top 2.

I actually think it's more likely now than in the last 20 years. Rangers and Celtic are fairly even and the stability of the other clubs means if say come Jan, they are close, they do not need to sell players to balance the books.

[pozbaird]

4 hours ago, Elixir said:

The closest anyone has come was Hertz in 1997-98, 25 years ago now. That was some Hearts team, but when you look at the Celtic and Rangers sides then, it shows something similar happening now isn't impossible - just extremely unlikely. Freak events like Leicester down south will happen eventually through over such long timescales.

No-one up here bar two clubs have won our top flight since 1985. How many different teams have won the English top flight since 1985? A lot more than two. Yes, Leicester winning it could be considered a freak event, considering Leicester had to win out over all of this little lot - Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, and the not as successful as the other big boys, but still bigger than them, Tottenham.

It wouldn’t be a freak event if a non ‘old firm’ team won the title up here. It would be a fcuking miracle. Even in a league like La Liga where two big clubs like Barca and Real Madrid can dominate, there’s still Atletico Madrid as genuine contenders.

If only we had a big three, our league would be changed hugely for the better, but we don’t. Our big two are completely untouchable by everyone else.

[gannonball]

I think now that Lawwells away and the Sevco happy to absorb huge losses it’s less likely. The former was happy to just be better than whoever domestically and we could have been beaten to titles under Lennon/Deila such was our stagnation and cutting the budget year on year but the expectation/pressure levels still remaining quite high. Our final season under Deila of Griffiths had his injury problems like he basically has had since we would have been in serious trouble. Changed days now though.

[coprolite]

3 hours ago, Elixir said:

The closest anyone has come was Hertz in 1997-98, 25 years ago now. That was some Hearts team, but when you look at the Celtic and Rangers sides then, it shows something similar happening now isn't impossible - just extremely unlikely. Freak events like Leicester down south will happen eventually through over such long timescales.

If we were stable in 2005-06? Who knows.

We're in as good a position right now as you could hope to be in for a non Old Firm club, both on and off the park. Let's see what the next few years bring...

No it wasn't. 91.

9 hours ago, pozbaird said:

There’s already a thread about this somewhere. In answer to the question though - forever and a day. No-one outwith Celtic and The Rangers can win the top flight. Take a look at the points difference between them and the third placed team last season. Only two things can possibly see a non ugly sister win the league any time soon. One is that a mad, mega-rich individual or consortium buys a diddy club, and absolutely throws obscene amounts of money at it, signing guys that otherwise would be nowhere near Scotland’s top flight. That is unlikely to happen, because anyone with that amount of money would buy into a ‘Sheffield United’ or ‘Sunderland’, type of English club, and attempt a route to the promised land of the EPL.

The second way it could happen is if a rogue nation hits Murray Park and Lennoxtown with tactical nuclear missiles during both clubs training sessions. Even then, the Scottish football authorities would find a way to fast-track their Under 18 sides straight into the top flight and give them a thirty point head start. 

Option 2

North Korea please

[BFTD]

4 hours ago, Elixir said:

Freak events like Leicester down south will happen eventually through over such long timescales.

Leicester was a big surprise that required a lot of things coming together at once (like all the big clubs having a shitemare, by their standards), but they were owned by a billionaire who (IIRC) had pumped £250m into the club. I'm not sure what the equivalent of that would be in Scottish football, but it hasn't come close to happening yet.

[Monkey Tennis]

11 hours ago, Theyellowbox said:

 

I actually think it's more likely now than in the last 20 years. Rangers and Celtic are fairly even and the stability of the other clubs means if say come Jan, they are close, they do not need to sell players to balance the books.

Sorry, but this is nuts.

It remained extremely unlikely during the years when Rangers were out of the picture, but it wasn't quite utterly inconceivable.  Right now, it is. It's much worse when the OF clubs are fairly even, because it means two giants need overcome.  It also leads to an arms race between them whereby their spending increases and the margins get yet bigger.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Monkey Tennis

[Monkey Tennis]

12 hours ago, CoF said:

 

That was excellent.  I've not seen it before.

It really does outline the ludicrous scale of the OF's advantages.  Setting it out in terms of wages and transfer fees is absolutely compelling.  So too, is the comparison of the discrepancy between the spending of England's big sides and their peers, with that in Scotland.

Looked at that way, the failure of Celtic and Rangers sides to win every single trophy between them, all the time, is something of an indictment.  Imagine supporting one of these sides and bragging about "success".  It's utterly embarrassing.

I'd love to know what dear old Wastecoatwilly would make of it.

 

It establishes beyond question that without structural change, it's impossible for a non-OF side to win our title.

[ahemps]

20 hours ago, Willie adie said:

As a 13 yr old in 1986 I think that if I'd known then I would probably have given up on the game.

I fear i will never see a winner outwith those two ever again 

This is where I am and with a young boy who is too young at this time to care about football but when the time comes I have resigned myself to directing him towards choosing an English side. The patronising, arrogance and entitlement that exudes from OF fans is so off putting that I'd rather he has nothing to do with Scottish football.

I find this sad but it is never going to change and Rangers fans have returned with an even greater sense of triumphalism than they had before due to the world being against them.

[ahemps]

Just now, Monkey Tennis said:

That was excellent.  I've not seen it before.

It really does outline the ludicrous scale of the OF's advantages.  Setting it out in terms of wages and transfer fees is absolutely compelling.  So too, is the comparison of the discrepancy between the spending of England's big sides and their peers, with that in Scotland.

Looked at that way, the failure of Celtic and Rangers sides to win every single trophy between them, all the time, is something of an indictment.  Imagine supporting one of these sides and bragging about "success".  It's utterly embarrassing.

I'd love to know what dear old Wastecoatwilly would make of it.

 

It establishes beyond question that without structural change, it's impossible for a non-OF side to win our title.

OF fans love this advantage, they see it as an achievement in itself and that others are open to putting themselves in this position but they have failed to do so which isn't their fault. 

 

[Dons_1988]

Not saying we would have won it but suspect most dons fans will look back on 15/16 and wonder what may have happened if Rooney stayed fit and we hadn’t played the 2nd half of the season effectively without a keeper.

We were in touching distance in mid March until pesky Motherwell ruined things as usual. 

[Monkey Tennis]

12 minutes ago, ahemps said:

OF fans love this advantage, they see it as an achievement in itself and that others are open to putting themselves in this position but they have failed to do so which isn't their fault. 

 

You're right.

It's clearly nonsense though.  The media coverage of both clubs and what they 'achieve' is essentially dishonest.

An illusion of competition is what we have.  There's genuinely little point in, let's say a Celtic versus Motherwell game, in requiring both sides to field the same number of players.  That's part of the illusion. The reality is however, that everything else is designed to make it a vast mismatch.  They should go the whole hog and let some Celtic players use their hands too.  They might as well.

It's clearly not meant to be remotely fair.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Monkey Tennis

[gannonball]

10 hours ago, BFTD said:

Leicester was a big surprise that required a lot of things coming together at once (like all the big clubs having a shitemare, by their standards), but they were owned by a billionaire who (IIRC) had pumped £250m into the club. I'm not sure what the equivalent of that would be in Scottish football, but it hasn't come close to happening yet.

With Leicester in the EPL though they had a budget which for fighting relegation really when you relate them to others in the league. For them to win it they would have needed half a dozen teams who would consider themselves to be at least outside title contenders to have an off season where is up here it’s really only two. It would still be monumental for a team like Aberdeen/Hearts to win it but it wouldn’t be on the same shock level as Leicester winning the EPL that season imo, and the odds would reflect this.