Dirty filthy tim unwashed mink news

[Jupiter]

Surely it's the Tim fans that are bored. They are stupid enough to make such a daft spelling mistake.

[Potterologist]

I don't know an awful lot about Scottish football. But I know an awful lot about football.

In every country where there are 2-4 dominant teams with big stadiums, good sponsorship, annual Champions League/Europa League money, these teams also build state of the art academies producing top players every year.

The league most similar to Scotland is the Portuguese league. Three teams have dominated forever and had the time and room for a permanent oligpoly to take shape - same thing could be said for Celtic & Rangers (who may be the second worst club in the world).

The difference is in Portugal they did something useful with that domination. Portugal got 2x the population of Scotland, yet they always have ca 200 players in the top 5 leagues while Scotland generally have ~35.

Similar things could be said for Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands etc... all of them pump out players, through great acadamies as well as modern scouting. All of the produce a lot more talent per capita. Scotland should have at least 75-100 players in the top 5 league as well as some reasonably competitive teams in the CL/EL.

The clubs needing to lead the way for Scotland are antique. Any time I tune into a Glasgow derby I get shocked by how clubs with these resources are just filled with dross who are at best going to play in some bottom half PL team at their peak. Both player development and scouting is clearly on a very low level and has been for twenty years or so, when the football world moved on and your giants didn't.

This is a football thought I have had for a long time, and just taking the opportunity to get it off my chest... I think a somewhat football mad country like Scotland just deserve better.

On the bright side of everything, mr Tony Bloom has entered the chat and I think he will have a massive impact on the entirety of Scottish football.

[wokinginashearerwonderland]

Interesting points 

In the same way, England intrigues me.  So the population of England is 10 times that of Scotland and based on your figures, England should have 750-1000 players in the top 5 leagues in Europe.  They currently have about 180. That's about 21% of what they should have, Scotland's 35 players accounts for about 40% of what they should have.  So double.

Last weekend English players in the starting line ups in the top 5 teams in the EPL accounted for just 30% of the 55 players.  Plus, with the STAGGERING resources available to English football, can you believe the English national team have won the same number of major trophies in the last 60 years as Scotland.  Mental.

 

 

 

[Potterologist]

7 hours ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

Interesting points 

In the same way, England intrigues me.  So the population of England is 10 times that of Scotland and based on your figures, England should have 750-1000 players in the top 5 leagues in Europe.  They currently have about 180. That's about 21% of what they should have, Scotland's 35 players accounts for about 40% of what they should have.  So double.

Last weekend English players in the starting line ups in the top 5 teams in the EPL accounted for just 30% of the 55 players.  Plus, with the STAGGERING resources available to English football, can you believe the English national team have won the same number of major trophies in the last 60 years as Scotland.  Mental.

 

 

 

Yup.

England are hopeless underperformers. No culture of learning really, just punishing people who doesnt do well and little encouragament for those who do. They also  understood 20 years later than the teams in France and Spain that acadamies are a good thing. They should be winning the vast majority of CL/EL/ECL titles and get a medal in just about every World Cup with the resources they have, but the chance to solve every problem with money just allows incompetence to grow. But there are some good academies in England now, think they have a strong future.

[tlg1903]

Context has to be applied.  One of the biggest reasons the ugly sisters don't do much when it comes to bringing through scottish talent is down to there being realistically little opportunity to.  There is just not the patience within either fan base to allow youth to learn at the expense of results because they are obsessed with their own 2 club pissing contest. Just look at how many managers they have both had this season.  

What I would say about the EPL and how many English players they have is you have to factor in that they pay so much more in wages compared to the other 4 top euro leagues.   2bh you may as well just remove France, Germany and Italy from this comparison because they are just not in the same league and even the closest league in spending is Spain which spends 65% less.  The point is pretty much every professional footballer in the world want's to play in England now bar those that make it to Barca and Madrid as those are the only two clubs in the world worthy of mention alngoside the biggest spenders in England.  Add to that, buying English players from English clubs is going to cost you more than a foreign player of the same ability at a non English club so it's often not desireable to do so.  In a way though this has actually helped the English national team as the 200 odd English player playing in the EPL are top level players, playing with lots of other top level players and now the England squad is literally the best on paper they have ever had.  

 

[BigAl]

 No necessity for arse cheeks to develop.their own youngsters as long as those coming through at other Scottish club sook their boaby as soon as one half of them shows the slightest interest in signing them