BrahimHemdani

You make your own luck in football and my two top 4 finishes clearly proves I am one of the most consistent if not the most consistent forecaster.

Congratulations again to the winner and runner up. Personally delighted to finish 4th after 2nd last season. I'll need to start putting money on these forecasts.

Nice to end with a full pointer. WELL DONE YB HARD LINES ROUSSEAU

2-1 Miller stop the game now!

Mr Reliable Miller again.

Looks like 4-4-2 to me or 4-4-1-1 perhaps. A rainy day in Perth, let's hope for some sunshine on the park. At least I was right about Barjonas, Windass and Waghorn.

This may not be down to PC.......

The league table doesn't lie. Aberdeen are the second best team in Scotland. If you'd been there on Wednesday you would know they are miles better than us.

I'm travelling in hope and going to stick with the 2-1 that's served me well twice recently. St Johnstone 1 Rangers 2 FGS (you guessed it) MIller

The thought of Kranjcar controlling our MF the way he did at home against Thistle and especially at Inverness has me drooling. If he can come back strong and avoid injury again, he will make the world of difference.

Your wish is my command.

Let's face it, he's transformed Celtic.

A very slow news day......

That's been said for some time now but he still seems to hang in there.

I understand that and I will never forgive them for trying to charge us for the game that was abandoned at half time never mind anything else; but the bottom line is that the SPL will be the better for the Dundee derbies than Hamilton v Motherwell. However, the best solution in the case of Dundee would be a new Dundee City at a new stadium.

LB, as I've demonstrated at #40 in the Alves thread, the financial gap created by Celtic reaching the group stages of the CL, is enormous and is likely to continue to grow for the foreseeable future. We have to start the long road back somewhere, sadly it might be in Connah's Quay or the Bakubeyond rather than the East End of Glasgow.

You can make this the match thread if you like; I'll try add something later but like you, I'm in need of a break. It must be at least 5/6 weeks since I've been away.

Try a dose of reality salts. Even if we can get ahead of Aberdeen we'd still be 30 points behind Celtic and the gap is going to get wider, financially at least, until we somehow win the League again and get back into the CL Group stages (or Celtic fail to qualify), which is along long way off. See #40.

JFK has a tendency to ignore the facts. "we generally totally dominated " I don't remember us dominating anyone other than Hamilton and Kilmarnock and we've been humiliated at home by Celtic and Aberdeen in record breaking situations. "all we need to tighten up this league is to put ourselves a level above the sheep" that's apart from the 40 point gap to Celtic of course. Celtic are the top seeds in CLQ2 and will be second top seeds in CLQ3 & Q4 if they get through. Would anyone here bet against them qualifying for the group stages again and benefiting from another huge financial boost? 2016/17 Figures HOW THE MONEY IS SHARED OUT FOR TEAMS IN THE UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE Group stage onward Forecast revenues The net amount available to participating clubs will be split on a 60:40 basis between fixed amounts and variable amounts (market pool). Based on the net amount of €1.2689bn, the fixed amounts will be €761.9m (group stage allocations, performance and qualification bonuses) and the variable amounts €507m (market pool). Fixed amounts (€761.9m) Basic allocation for each club in group stage: €12.7m. Performance bonus per group win: €1.5m Performance bonus per group draw: €500,000 per draw. Non-distributed amounts (€500,000 per draw) will be pooled and redistributed among the clubs playing in the group stage in amounts proportionate to their number of wins. Round of 16 appearance: €6m Quarter-final appearance: €6.5m Semi-finalist appearance €7.5m The UEFA Champions League winners can expect to receive €15.5m and the runners-up €11m, inclusive of their share of ticket revenue from the final (no additional amount will be paid to the finalists in relation to ticketing as was customary in the past). A club could therefore receive, at best, €57.2m, not including their play-off allocations or market pool share In addition Market pool (€507m) An estimated €507m will be distributed according to the proportional value of each television market represented by the clubs taking part in the UEFA Champions League (group stage onwards) and split among the clubs participating from a given association. Half of the amount representing the value of each market will be split among the clubs based on their performance in the previous domestic championship. The other half of the amount representing the value of each market will be paid in proportion to the number of matches played by each club in the 2016/17 UEFA Champions League. In the case of Scotland, Celtic would get 100% of this money. UEFA has announced €507 million in market pool money for each of the next three champions league seasons. Which will be distributed according proportional value of each TV market (Country/League). So the market pool awarded to each country’s league will be distributed among the teams from that league according to their performance in previous league season and how many matches they will play in the given champions league season. English clubs will benefit the most with the new Market Pool distribution system and If an english club were to win the champions league in 2016-17 season they will earn more than €110 million (around €55m from performance based + another €50m/€60m with market pool). If FC Basel were to win the Champions League they won’t make as much as Real Madrid or Barcelona did in the last couple of years. Why ? because of the market value of the team. Teams coming from top 4 European Leagues get the bigger chunk of the market pool. Every League (not teams) gets specific market pool money according to the UEFA Ranking of European Leagues, and for example last season from Spain Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Real Sociedad played in group stages so the total market pool for spain was shared between four teams. Where Barcelona got €24.6 million, Real Madrid €20 million, Atletico got €17 million and Real Sociedad got €8.5 million in market pool money. Juventus on the other hand got massive €58.20 million from market pool money because only them and AS Roma from Italy played in the group stages and Roma knocked out in group stages leaving Juventus with huge portion. So the Market Pool given out to other low ranked leagues like Ukraine, Russia (Scotland) etc is much lower so the clubs from those countries get less money even if they over achieve and qualify for the later stages of the champions League. How much Real Madrid and Atletico Earned during Last Champions League prize money ? Real Madrid defeated Atletico in the final of 2016 Champions League and set to pocket minimum €94 million from their 2015-16 european campaign. While Atletico will be making around €82 million. Real Madrid earned around €40.6 million in market pool money plus €53.4m in performance based money taking total earnings from 2015-16 season to €94 million. Atletico got €35 million in market pool plus €47m in performance based making grand total of €82 million for their 2015-16 champions league campaign. http://www.totalsportek.com/money/uefa-champions-league-prize-money/ Based on 2014/15 figures I would guess that if Celtic qualify it would be worth somewhere in the region of €3-5 million (the team from Cyprus got €2.5 million) from the market pool; so that would be a total of around £17.5 million; even if they don't get a point in the Group stages. Unless any of our investors is going to put in that kind of money, the financial gap is going to get wider before it gets narrower.

Celtic will be better next season, with or without Dembele, for the simple reason that they will keep more or less the same team together and will probably add some quality signings.

Are we still the second best team in Scotland this season, in your opinion?

I did say when I first posted that a few days ago that there is no way of knowing to what extent he is responsible for Cagliari's goals against, it might well be that it would be higher without his influence. Anyway, I'd be delighted to see him here. Can't wait to see him put Griffiths on the track.

I'm sorry Inverness have gone down and there's no doubt Dundee Utd in the SPL is a much better prospect than Hamilton; whatever our past feelings about them might be.

Just had a call from a Michael O'Halloran, so that's one seat taken on the way up; but 3 spare on the way back.

Thanks for useful suggestions and sorry to disappoint as I'm already booked to take Kiernan and Forrester to Nottingham. Just to be clear; it was a serious offer and not a spoof thread.