07 Jul 2024 00:00:41
We will need too raise our wage budget, but that's not the only problem, good players look at our league and think that isn't for me, most would choice the championship, young talent are only looking to use us as a stepping stone for a move too the epl or a better league, we need to take our poor league into consideration.
07 Jul 2024 09:59:33
I disagree with you Jamie. The Championship is equally a stepping stone. We have the carrot of CL football which is probably a better shop window. I think we have something unique in that we provide players with the mentality that not winning is unacceptable. The Championship teams are quite happy with 2 wins, 2 draws and a loss in 5 and get a trophy for finishing 3rd.
07 Jul 2024 10:13:38
I get what you’re saying about the league. But money talks in all walks of life. Players aren’t going to Saudi for the standard of the league or football they’re going because of money. Not saying we can get those standards of players, but it’s the same sort of principle.
07 Jul 2024 10:38:54
Yes of course money talks toprig, but will we offer good players a better salary than their getting, no, our league is pish poor a major reason why players will not come.
07 Jul 2024 10:39:29
Our club is a huge temptation/ attraction for players but it's our league that is the negative to many transfers. The standard is seen as poor overall and wages are lower.
Young players and their agents want big money straight away, the time of serving your apprenticeship has gone.
We can accept being a stepping stone for young players to so called bigger leagues and making a lot of money but what's the point if we are not improving the product that is the SPFL. That should be ours, the SFA and SPFL's main agenda and the way to start driving that is getting what we deserve from SLY and other sponsors imo.
It is these companies who are undervaluing our league and pushing the sport in Scotland towards extinction.
Having watched the Euros, I have not been blown away by the standard of the so called big 5 league teams. Lesser nations have played the more attractive attacking football.
So if these lesser teams are performing at a level on par with the'bigger' leagues, why aren't we, is it purely lack of investment at the grass root level or is it something else completely.
People will say that we are partly responsible as we don't make more of our youth system but to compete in Europe we need to buy better quality players, its a catch 22 but our club cannot make a difference on our own, proper investment at grass root level needs to come from somewhere.
We as fans demand success, so are we prepared to wait for our own young players to come through the ranks and develop, accept not buying so many foreign first team ready players, forget winning the league every year and forget CL qualification for years, in the hope that the standard of our the scottish football system improves.
For me, the onus lies with the people who run our game to take the decisions to improve and stand up for our product, it is as if they have run out of ideas or want the clubs to do it themselves.
07 Jul 2024 11:40:28
What young players who are good enough to hold a place in a better team are you on about? We don’t have any. It would be great if we did, but none of them are good enough. All the hoping in the world won’t change that. The best will get some minutes, fail to impress and that will be that, as it has been since KT. And then it’s Calum and then James. That’s it in nearly 20 years. The reason our recruitment is vital is we produce players for the Dundees of this world.
07 Jul 2024 17:30:25
Hopefully with the increasing CL and a chance of 8 or more games then we can start to attract a better standard of player as we are now guaranteed European football after Xmas every year.
07 Jul 2024 17:48:19
Magic, read it again, I didn't say we had any geat young players, I said what do fans want, success by buying slightly better players at greater cost and continually winning domestically, but the quality of the league doesn't improve, and our performances in CL continue to fall or be erratic, or try a model which brings through homegrown young players, with the risk of not winning domestically amd again reducing chances of CL qualification and performance.
Fans want homegrown players but they also want success, so as a club how do we do we do that.
08 Jul 2024 14:59:04
Our biggest problem is we are paying far too high wages .
That is the only reason that every summer we have more and more players not contributing to us . No other club wants to pay wages and quite rightly our Board has budgeted a max wages budget . Even if we loan out a player and pay some of his wages, he is still having a negative affect on our wages budget for incoming season.
10 Jul 2024 19:12:55
Agents are very shrewd readers of the game . They can advise a young player to go to a mid table Championship team, knowing that a move to EPL will go smoothly if player improves in England . If he struggles he can easily move down the table or even to a lower league, still on similar wages .
Advising a youngster to join Celtic restricts his chances, if he does very well he can move smoothly to upper Championship or even EPL . However if he regresses, there is a major problem, nobody wants to pay his wage and so he is hanging about in no man’s land with no football available to him.