mistercrayon wrote:

I don’t think that evidence involving Kasper Schmeichels dad is much that it’s a reliable source of goals.

I mean, you can have a compilation if you want.



The point is that he said he's never seen it work, and whilst unusual it's definately happened often enough that keepers still do it 25 years on from the first one I showed. It's an extra body in the box, it's distracting because they don't practice for it, and they're usually the biggest pwerson in thge box, wearing a different colour shirt.

mistercrayon wrote:

Gav I’ve been meaning to ask: is rangers being at the top a bit like Man City buying the best players or is gerrard a great manager? Are the rangers players that much better than celtics?

Diluted Dante wrote:

Rangers have way less of a budget than Celtic. I'd say he's worked miracles.

Yep, Dante is onto it. But I'll try and flesh it out a bit.

Here is the starting XI for the last Old Firm game that took place before Gerrard arrived.



The game ended 5-0 to Celtic and secured their seventh title in a row. That was less than three years ago. Only Tav remains from there.

Now about budget, I won't sit here and act like we're on a comparative budget to the rest of the league, cos we are not. Still much much less than theirs, but still way ahead of the rest. And let's not forget Aberdeen have finished above a Gerrard Rangers side in the past. There have been disappointments, on paper.

But this season, it feels like Rangers were building towards this. Building towards having an actual full squad of reliable players, no passengers, no players where you go "oh no, not him" when they're coming on. Signings like Glen Kamara for 50k (full Finland intl, going to the Euros, former Arsenal graduate), McGregor on a free (look across at their GK situation), Davis on a free (still runs the show at 37), Goldson (our Thanos, first name on the sheet), and Roofe have elevated us. Yep, big money on Hagi (£5m), Helander (£3m from Bologna) and Kent (£7m). I can go on though. Barisic is now the starting LB for Croatia, Aribo on a dev fee has been great, Arfield & Jack are dependable 9/10 SPFL midfielders. Leon Balogun is a fucking great catch, and then we have yer man JD, still slotting them away. Some fucking squad boys. The scouting and development staff have been upgraded. Facilities. We've just been building and building while they've been complacent and made bad, bad transfer policy decisions. And that's all money. So, no, we're no plucky fairytale. I think we're just a better run footballing operation top to bottom. I'll let the bloggers run rule over the business.

The fairytale comes in the last decade and where we've been. The plucky part is whether or not you believe we established in 1872 or 2012

Thanks man!

I must admit I think gerrard has impressed so far - I think the biggest sign was the progress in Europe
Last year.

It’s interesting also that whatever curse has hit Celtic on completing the ten in a row seems to have hit juventus (coincidentally from historic rivals who’s best was a long time ago)

Come on Chorley!

Bah.

European super league is coming...

18-23 games midweek, domestic leagues unaffected.. 15 invited members and 5 annual qualifier members. The initial 15 would share £300mil pot just to join.

15 invited members: Utd, City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs,Barca, Real, Atletico, PSG, Bayern, Dortmund, Inter, AC, Juventus.

£3.5billion infrastructure grant for the 15 invited members. To be used on training ground, stadium and loss revenue from covid 19.

4 games for each team would be exclusive to their own media platform.

32.5% of revenue will go to founder members. 32.5% to all 20 teams. Remainder to be given according to SL positions.

Also extra money for "club awareness" basically the really big clubs.

Top 12 would qualify for FIFA world club cup.

Their own FFP 55% cap on annual revenue to spent on transfers and agent fees and wages.

Fifa and uefa against this, but they may have no choice as the big clubs could breakaway if they wanted.

Fifia/UEFA threatening that any player taking part in SL, will be banned from World Cup and Euro Championships. However fifa/uefa may back down if they get a bigger slice of the pie.

Exclusive on tonights transfer window podcast.

What are Arsenal doing on that list?

Non of those clubs you've mentioned deserve a place for any other reason than nostalgia.

But they're not top clubs on the European stage.

Wait a minute, let's ask Shaka Hislop what he thinks.

Well shit the bed, isn't he staunch.

They FIFA/UEFA may not have much of a choice. They released a joint statement this week saying they werent in favour of it. But it is expected they will fold. Money talks and despite sepp batter and co being tossed out. Money is all that motivates FIFA/UEFA.

It sounds like a bullshit "exclusive" a talk radio show would invent to drive calls.

Diluted Dante wrote:

UEFA will get more money out of the Champions League. If this goes ahead, those teams would be thrown out of their domestic leagues.

No one wants a European Super League. Fans want to watch their teams compete in a national league.

I sometimes wonder how long fans loyalty will last before everyone just supports a super team.

I’m suspicious because of how much passion is generated for randomly made up teams in things like the IPL but also how teams in NFL seem to swap around.

So my theory is if the super league clubs exist people will just get bored of watching a league without them.

I hope it doesn’t happen but it feels like crowds will vanish (and certainly the biggest crowds in the league will move on by default).

Diluted Dante wrote:

Dinostar77 wrote:

Dante, why would teams be thrown out of the domestic leagues when domestic leagues arent affected? Its a replacment for CL when the current rights end in 2025.

Because it won't be a replacement, UEFA and FIFA dont want it. So if it happens it will be a breakaway league. If they breakaway they can't compete in any FIFA or UEFA affiliated competitions.

For sure thats a given. Of course if UEFA/FIFA do approve it then there wont be a problem. As much as i hate the idea myself.

Worth pointing out that FIFA want a piece of the CL pie from UEFA and have been planning on expanding the Wold Club Cup into a proper competition to rival the CL. So CL morphing into SL would fuck with their plans.

Arsenal behind at Southampton!