Virgil van Dijk

I disagree, Devlin writes a lot of brilliant posts but if we're to accurately assess how well our board are or aren't doing in the transfer market, we have to have a realistic idea of what they're up against- so we should care.

 

Then we judge it from us at our highest level - The Champions League

 

And we were * this season :icon_mrgreen:

 

Of course, and some players we try to buy or keep will (very sensibly) do just that; but some won't, some will just dismiss us out of hand due to widespread prejudices about our league.

 

To be fair it was always going to be a transitional season. That's why this thread is so important. I feel I'll know all I need to about whether this season was just a transitional season or whether we need to start getting used to getting bent over in the CL for the foreseeable future when I see whether we keep Van Dijk or not (because I'm sure bids will be made).

 

Leagues are always going to be as good as they are based on the supporter base. It's just not there in Scotland. Talent wise it's their, but what are the opportunities, if there is no investment? That's the difference. You would be judging a city team against a town team, city team in England against a town team in Scotland. Chances are a city team is going to have a larger fan base, fill a bigger stadium and therefore have more investment simply because of basic economics.

Football wise, well take a look outside and ask yourself if you fancy going running around in shorts and t-shirt, in the mud, in the gale force wind and rain for ten years.

Take the training indoors and then you can get somewhere, but right now, i bet lots of kids play, then decide they'd rather not go running around in Summer clothes in a Scottish winter at a game that means nothing, isn't scouted, is over competitive and there is no progression.

The better players will go and play five-a-side with there pals and never even dream that a professional career is possible.

 

No, we didn't do above expectations this season.

Those players can shove it then for me, I don't want a player with the mentality that he's too good for our league and by extension, us, playing for us. That type of player has came here before and invariably failed.

 

That's a good point. Me neither.

 

But the only comparisons are with England. Why not Dutch or Scandinavian leagues. There is a little to much obsession with English leagues and worse again the attitude of English supporters.

 

England seems to be the place where an awful lot of the guys we miss out on or end up having to sell seem to be ending up at the moment and (for cultural and language reasons) the English lower leagues ought to be a natural hunting ground for us to look for talent. Who can doubt that the unprecedented financial strength of the English leagues has been our single biggest problem this last 5 years?

 

Yet where we will get better value for money is where we are looking now.
Holland Virgil
Belguim Vic
Sweden Lustig have all proved good buys.

 

Bangura, Pukki, Balde.

Hooper, Matthews, Griffiths, Ledley, K.Wilson, Forster.

 

Griffiths has not proved himself yet. Ledley was on a big wage and was sold for very little. K. Wilson was hardly here till he was out the door again.

Balde has not been given much of a chance but we are talking further afield I could add Izzy and Biton.

 

Point is we get good players from all places and bad ones from all places. Neither clubs or countries are better than the other.

 

English people think Scottish people are inferior to tell full stop. It doesn't matter if it is footballers or football team, it doesn't matter if it is a tennis player, no Scottish player has won any of the big Tennis tournaments , Andy Murray the Scottish tennis player has often lost in the early rounds but Andy Murray the Great British tennis player has won some wonderful tournaments . How any Scottish person can bear having any links to the English is beyond me .

 

We would be stupid to ignore any market but we should not be reliant on England was my initial point. I felt this thread seemed to have become a little to focused on England like the world ended there.

 

I don't think you quite get the English if you think they think we're inferior. It's true and very funny what you say about Murray, though. :smiley-laughing002:

 

I think the discussion was more about where our players go when they leave, rather than where we pick players up.

It's just unfortunate that we happen to be right next to England. There's something similar between Portugal and Spain I think, where La Liga kind of casts a big shadow over the Portuguese league.

 

To be fair the EPL is a good market for the seller. Even the championship can be a good selling ground for our duds.

 

Funnily enough I was talking to a fan of a Championship side only yesterday who seemed to think Loovens was a great player and was surprised that I wasn't gutted to lose him. :smiley-laughing002: