posted Oct 4, 2008

I don't see how Lambert can criticise anyone - his management record is mince!
Despite being a bad year this season, Scottish clubs have done pretty well in recent times (last season anyone?)considering the resources.
People should remember that Scottish teams have to play far more preliminary games to even qualify for Europe, often before the season has started. Also the SPL clubs don't get gifted £20 million a season and 4 clubs with automatic entry into the "Champions" League and half the rest of the league in the UEFA Cup like the 'so wonderful' money-led English Premiership with it's billionaire owners and overpaid players, non of whom are actually English.

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posted Oct 4, 2008

Re Gordon and Walter's recent utterances, methinks they protesteth too much! The hard fact is that, prior to visiting Fir Park, they and their players always remind us that it is a tough place to go. The team that are in 14th place in the French league found it a "scoosh".

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posted Oct 4, 2008

Again the SHORT memory of the fans & the press welds its head again. Last season was Scotlands best co-efficient season since UEFA started that system & our best since there were Scots in finals & semi-finals in the 60's/70's. Personally its been blown way out of proportion.
Hibs failed as the players weren't hungry for the Inter-Toto diddy cup.
Rangers failed as they didn't have the players to challenge and came up against a hungrier side.
Motherwell failed due to some sloppy defending that was so goodin the 1st leg &
Celtic have nearly failed but with their record their only 2 pts off what people expected them to have so why be critical of the Villarreal game when everyone knows it was lost against Aalborg.
As a Gers fan I would not be surprised if Celtic beat Man U & Villarreal at Parkhead but I doubt it'll be enough as a heavy loss in Manchester will be followed by a dodgy loss in Denmark.
PS - I think Paul Lambert is right.

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posted Oct 4, 2008

For a country of 5 million I think our league is great .

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posted Oct 4, 2008

Our national organisations are a joke and hinder our teams in Europe rather than help. Compare and contrast the help given to the UEFA Cup finalists last season by their respective leagues and that tells you all you need to know about how well we want our teams to do in Europe. I also agree with Craig Levein's recent comments regarding the scheduling of the WC qualifying matches. Who in their right mind would be happy with two away games to start?

Our national governing bodies are rotten to the core and need to be restructured from top to bottom. Our closed shop football league doesn't seek to get rid of dead wood and well organised junior and non league sides are prevented from joining, increasing the competitiveness of the football league and bringing in talent from other areas of the country.

As for training this is only one factor that limits our ability in Europe. If Scottish Clubs cannot learn, adopt and implement continental style training methods then we'll always lag behind. However as others have mentioned the lifestyles of some of our footballers is disgraceful. Look at how Andy Murray conducts himself in his attitude to his sport to see just how so called professional footballers are way off the being the athletes they should be.

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posted Oct 4, 2008

I think what everyone is really missing here is the stupidity of way the leagues are set up in Scotland. Playing each other over the course of a season 3-4 times in the league campaign is ludicrous to say the least. Ok, we don't have the resources in Scotland like they do in other countries, but at least other countries run there set up a lot better than we do. If smaller nations are getting there teams to beat our top teams, then i say reconstruct the league tables. We have 42 top flight pro teams, have the main league consist of 18 teams and then a second league with the remaining 24 teams. Playing 34 games in the top league would give Scottish clubs time to schedule postponments, World Cup, Euro Cup and concentrate on the fitness and training of asaid hopefuls in the European Cup games.

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posted Oct 4, 2008

Nah, 2 divisions, 18/18 (3up, 3down & 3 down to semi-pro, where we could have several leagues of minor teams vying for promotion. That way, some of the big money trickles down to the smaller clubs.

Also re Scottish football mentality - my mate's stag-do featured a trip to watch 1860 Munich. The Germans are just as passionate (or more than) as we are about footie, HOWEVER:
They applauded a short-passing build up, applauding good skillful football.

When one player, under pressure, hoofed the ball clear, the entire stadium laughed at him.

Over here you get "Git rid ae it ya @*^+!"

PS get rid of Euro places for Cup runners-up!
QoS? Dunfermline? Gretna? It's just GIVING UP one place we're given...

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posted Oct 5, 2008

I would say the critisism of the Old firm is unjustified, due to the excellent results over the past few years. Unfortunately, we don't have other clubs who are at a european level yet to compete - Gretna, Dunfermline, QOTS, even Motherwell etc. I think it will take a lot for these teams to compete properly. Maybe Paul Lambert should keep it shut after the mess he made of Livingston. I think for the size of Scotland, its national team and Old Firm are keeping its football reputation alive, the smaller teams getting their chance is all well and good but Gordon Smith was right, that desperately needs to change. Laughing stock springs to mind. But i do think we have improved greatly from the 90's when the Old firm would get booted out of Europe in a farce of 4-0 drubbings. Its getting better, slowly but a lot of work needs done, not just training wise, but overall.
Paul Lambert - why don't you come back to scotland and show us how its done since you know so much?

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posted Oct 5, 2008

He's spot on imo. Although the standard has improved slightly over the last few years thanks to re-focussing on our youth system, we are still lagging behind other nations.

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posted Oct 7, 2008

Sure one can argue that it is all about training methods. Truth is it is more about money makign the gap between the big 4 football countries and all others just widening. Training grounds, accomodation, players, training staff, etc... It is easy when you have an Arab or Russian billionaire, television contracts giving the relagated sides more income than the average team elsewhere. Once a ten year, maybe there can be a little success but European football has changed too much for clubs from countries as Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands or Scotland to repeat such small successes every year. Whether it is a positive devolution is another question. For instance, how can the average Arsenal fan still identify himself with his club. Last Saturday, one Britton on the pitch (Walcott). In nothing to be compared to the Arsenal sides of the ´70ies and ´80ies, in nothing to be compared with people like Tony Adams, Ian Wright, Viv Anderson, Alan Ball, O´Leary, etc... Same for Liverpool : the side with Rush, Hanssen, Keegan, Grobbelaer, ... was much more mythical than the one with a bunch of Spanish players.

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