calscot

I laboured the point but you still seem to have missed it - it's not about doing what Walter did, it's about doing something different to bridge the gap somewhat - whatever that is. I'm surprised you found being played off the park so entertaining - but I suppose Leipzig were good to watch at times. If this is the future it's deeply depressing and I'd happily go back to the past as a better alternative. Personally, for entertainment there is not even a sniff of a contest, to say I much preferred the games in the UEFA cup run is about as understated as you can get. Far, far more enjoyable to watch for me, and infinitely more exciting. But each to their own...

I found a pertinent quote from Walter Smith: 'The worrying factor is it looks as though the gulf between ourselves and the rest is liable to get bigger,' warned Smith. 'So it falls on the manager to find a way of playing that can bring us a level of success. 'The obvious way was the way I tried beforehand. At the time, that turned out to be great for us.' I'm not promoting the use the tactics he used (although, I for one enjoyed the games where we used them, and loved the success), but the main point is to "find a way of playing that can bring us a level of success", whatever that way of playing may be. However, trying to play a team of better players at their own game, sounds bound to fail, even if we play our A game at our best.

Yet... We still have to win the appeal in the BTC.

I would say on wages... The rest on operation running costs.

I think his problem is that he crosses way over the line and then point blank refuses to take a step or two back.

I thought Leipzig were well worth their two goal lead although I think we may have a claim for that goal. However, they could have scored more and while two goals in a half can be said in a way that doesn't sound like a big difference, it's four goals a game. I didn't really see us challenge although I missed the first 20 minutes trying to get Premier Sports, and then watched it on a poor quality stream. I would say there were plenty of times where we put a few nice passes together - and then gave the ball away. And I'm not sure what system we're playing in defence but our marking is very strangely, a sort of zonal that is quite far away from the opposing players, and very flat footed too. They seem to stay too far off the opposition and let them run through the gaps. They also seem to be very late in seeing the runners and instead of already being on the half turn they are facing forwards and slow to get running back to the goal. I thought we looked pretty much at least 3-4 goals a game behind them, so to say we were not far behind, to me is like saying that the whole of the SPL below us, are breathing right down our necks, just a smidgen off, a goal or two behind. Actually, I wish they were as close to us as we are to RBL. It would be nice to see us win regularly in such a comfortable fashion.

For me, I'd like to see us against the type of teams that we will face in the Europa qualifiers or the group stages. I would at least like us to see us against teams who have a similar budget to us, as that doesn't happen in Scotland. I think there is a bit of "what did you expect" when we're stuffed by more expensive sides which at the moment has only been Burnley, Celtic and Leipzig, and then there is "well we're going to drop some points" against lesser sides, and a bit of "so what" when we beat them. In these cases we learn nothing about where we really are and how good our manager is. A manager looks like he is a cut above when he dispatches cheaper sides regularly with ease, and gives more expensive sides a good game with some good results, and is consistently better than sides with a similar budget. At the moment we're not doing the first two, and the last is never tested.

Next season I can't see us being so relatively far behind Celtic in income even with the CL money. I think we'll jump from about 20m to the low 30s. I think they will increase to be up to close to 60m. The difference will be several million in merchandising, several million in prize money, a few million in gate receipts, and the CL money which might be up to 20m gross but probably a lot less net. Our two biggest problems are merchandising and CL money - with the latter really skewing the figures hugely for two similar clubs. I don't think UEFA know how bad their system is for the smaller leagues with only one entrant - especially as the money is of such a high order compared to other income in these countries. It means if a team gets to the CL a few years in a row, they have such an advantage they will continue to win the league and get there. It's too much of a golden circle. All countries need two clubs to have a potential path to the riches to give the second or third team a chance to get on an even pegging. We pretty much need Celtic to go out of both while we have a half decent Europa run.

I agree it's very difficult - although Rangers have published this for the last two seasons. I seem to be able to get figures for the SPL a few years ago, as well as recent average player wages. Fair enough.

Is that the first team wages or the whole company? I looked around and it's hard to get definitive figures but what I found suggested Celtic were in the mid to high 20s, Aberdeen about 4 and Hearts about 3. I think we pay less in directors fees than most clubs - ie close to zero. But I'm happy to use your figures if you think they are accurate.

I think we all expected defeat from a top German team, but I think the problem some are having is that it was all too predictable - we were just any old wee team against a big one. We not only showed nothing special, we made basic mistake after basic mistake, giving the ball away cheaply, and in defence looked like we just didn't have a clue, combined with a touch of couldn't be bothered. Even John Grieg gave us the odd thing to be excited about in proper European games and Raith Rovers once gave Bayern a tougher test. I can't see anything positive to take from it, we are just a very, very ordinary side in a shite league and the magic hat has been lost in the wash. I'm not sure what our wage bill is at the moment but I'm presuming it's over 10m. What we need right now is a manager who can make us look like a 15m side on that budget and a 30m side on a 20m budget. What we've got is a 10+m team that looks like a 4m one. We seem more concerned about meaningless and inappropriate short balls on the floor, than actual getting the ball out of defence and then creating attacks - and we're just not good enough at it to keep the ball for long. Sometimes you need a dose of reality and realise the strengths and weaknesses of your team and adjust your play to suit your level skill and optimise your effectiveness. It seems some were highly embarrassed when Walter did that to take us to the UEFA final, and they are probably happier with this kind of defeat considering the "style" we attempted. I'd rather at least give European sides a bit of a game. We took a punt on an upcoming rookie manager, and seem to have ended up with a rookie manager. I know if we had Walter now, the first thing he'd do is go out and bring in a couple of defenders - within a budget. Last time he got Weir for free, Webster was on loan, Ehiogu was free, Broadfoot was free, Dailly was free, and then his big spend was on the fantastic Cuellar for about the price of Garner and MoH. He also spent 2m on Whittaker, as we did have a wee bit more of a budget then. The point is he found guys in budget that were better than what their headline costs suggested. But even then you have to coach the defenders into a system that works and that's something we just don't seem to be doing very well right now - despite having Weir as the assistant manager.

What about "Welcome Scotland!", although I suppose we all get that bit...

I don't think we need a law book, just common sense, and some of the support gaining a bit of maturity. Or maybe I just don't get that kind of self destructive mentality.

You have to wonder why as while in itself, it's a non-story, in the context that Celtic fans are making a big fuss about Ibrox, blogging and singing about it, asking for FOA info, and trying to bring hard hats along - now THAT'S an interesting story.

Got to say, beards make young guys look pretty old... he looks 30 something there.

Ah I get it, the Jock part has come off... a bit slow today...

While it seems a bit utilitarian, can someone help me out with the problem with the stand?

In the day an age of management speak like, "considering all stakeholders", football seems to only think about the fans when it's how to think up ways to punish them...

It's a pretty bad set of affairs when all we want is a level playing field. Obviously that's never been in Hibs' mindset...

I somewhat agree with you but I'm not convinced that we have improved enough and are still struggling for consistency - all the weaknesses from the beginning of the season are still evident, and we now have a long injury list. Celtic will drop points especially through complacency, but I don't think that will be very relevant to us, except when against us and our rivals. I think they will raise their game more for us and that could negatively impact our fight for second place. They also still seem to have that mad Celtic mindset, where I would not be surprised if they gave the likes of Aberdeen, a bit of an easy game. I think we're really going to benefit from Hearts changing their manager (except I expect those players also to raise their game against us more than Aberdeen) so it will all be about the Dons. Form-wise they are equal with us for the last 6 and 5 games ago, but better from 4 games onward. I think we have both now played Celtic twice in the league. I really want to see us go on a decent run where we are consistently scoring 2 or more a game and conceding 1 or less. Games where we look like we know what we're doing, and how to win. .

Previously on here, a high incidence of injuries has been blamed on the training methods...

I'm not sure what action the board need to do right now: the league is out of reach and it's more about securing second place, hopefully with a bit to spare. Right now, I just want a modest amount of spending to bring in a few players who improve the team. We should even have money to spare - Barton's wage is freed and must have been quite high, there is the possibility that Kanjcar's wage might be being paid by insurers, and we've put another couple of players out on loan. We desperately need to shore up the defence, find a play-maker to crack open deep and numerous defences, and a guy who can regularly put the ball in the net. Even now we're not clear in second with Aberdeen having a game in hand and only two points behind - which I still think is not very encouraging, considering our relative spending on wages. I can't see how a couple of young loan signings is going to help - and is contradictory to the "settled side" mantra we've been hearing. I don't want to spend too much future income now as we'll need it later, but we could do with some modest but encouraging investment - questions are whether the board are prepared to do this, and/or whether Warburton feels he needs to spend, and/or whether he can find the right players at the right price.

From history it seems like club can transform itself in 1-3 seasons given the right investment and a manager that uses it to produce the best team. The only relevance I see to the 4-5 years is if it takes that long to get the required investment as it's clear we can't compete right now until we have comparable resources to Celtic.

It's got to be said that Celtic are having an amazing season domestically so far with 19 wins and a draw (plus the League Cup which makes it 23 wins and a draw with only one game against a non Premier team). An important question is why? Are they just that good, is it due to the players or mostly down to cunning of the manager, are they having an amazing purple patch, is it just a fantastic run of luck, is the opposition a lot lower quality, or a combination of all of that? The answers to these is pretty important to us as it determines how good we have to be to win the league - and in gauging where we are at the moment.

While we need a major investment at some point, I still believe this is jumping the gun a bit. As we keep saying, it's a transitional year and that's most obviously because our income, outside season tickets, will not increase significantly until the end of this season. I think this year we all know we had to take the hit of not quite competing with Celtic, although in my personal view, finishing third or worse would be a bad setback. By the season end, there will be noticeable higher income streams from prize money, TV and commercial deals that were minuscule in the second tier due to the way the SPFL work. So it's imprudent to spend too highly while we wait for that to materialise, when we still would be unlikely to do better than 2nd place. There is also the hopeful aspiration of earning something tangible from the Europa League next season which could boost things further. All this addition income puts us in a better basis to borrow or spend cash raised on an improved team and so challenge for the title. Other problems for income come from the high profile court battles with Ashley, where the board seem confident of getting some kind of result in the near future. But then there is also the issue where the board don't as yet have full control of the club: twice they have been defeated on a resolution for them to invest in the club in the way they wish. I think that is putting back the share issues which would allow us the cash to put into the team. To a layman, I would guess that that lack of power also makes it more unattractive for Kingco to invest larger amounts as I can see why they wouldn't want to do that without full control of the club. So I don't think the question should be about whether there should be investment in the team, more pertinently it is - when is the right time? I don't agree that the time is now.