Virgil van Dijk

Id say this is true. I don't live in England but at least half of the people I work with are English and they just see Scottish football in the exact same way as most of us likely see the Welsh league.

I cant actually disagree with their views on the quality of the SPFL. I think it is very poor and I think many team would be evenly matched in League 2 never mind League 1. But the logic seems to go - the league is rubbish therefore Celtic cant be very good. Which does annoy me. As if dropping Barca in the SPFL instantly makes them worse by virtue of them only beating Ross County rather than Valencia.

What I would say however, is that I also think there is a bit of arrogance almost in reaction to that attitude, from Celtic fans towards English clubs. The sort of "Chelsea aren't a real club and have no history" argument does annoy me and it is pretty arrogant. Even though I don't like Chelsea, they do have a history and they actually have a historically higher crowd on average than Celtic do (granted historic numbers are sketchy). Or the "why on earth would our best players go to * little teams like Southampton" argument. As if by virtue of them not being as big as Celtic in the past, that they have no right to be bigger than Celtic in the future.

That isn't to defend the English attitude. I just think sometimes we can be just as bad.

 

I just find it laughable that any every single club who manages to make it up to the epl is suddenly a massive club and with that comes the * brigade who then come out the woodworks after years under the bed thinking they can slag leagues like ours and a club like us..

I'm one of those that get my back up instantly at this attitude and tone..

We are not the biggest club in the world and probably do live of the past but we have earned a world wide reputation on and off the field throghout the years and always punched what they like to call 'above our weight' and in my opinion that should demand alot more respect than it does down here..
The truth is they look down there noses at scottish football as a whole when the fact of the matter is, in my eyes, that we are bigger than 95% of the lot of them..
Does that give us more of a right to judge others? I think so..

 

wheres the evidence

 

League 2? Hold the bus mate, English League 2 is shocking. Literally so bad. Scottish Premiership deserves a bit more credit than that.

 

It's not league 2 standard, no chance!

 

The now and the present though is that Southampton are in no way anywhere near as big a club as Celtic, and won't be for some considerable time if at all. That's why our fans say that.

 

I agree with your argument here, Sween; but I tnink you're being a bit hard on some of our fans here. This whole new "my club is bigger than your club" thing (where's Jungo when you need him?) is really quite a predictable result of what has happened this last 15 years or so.
I remember when I started supportng Celtic that there wasn't nearly so much of this. We were proud of our European Cup win in 67 and that era in general, we were proud of our identity including our political identity (especially Irish republicanism) and, most of all, we were proud of playing the Celtic way. All of that really has faded. If we take them one by one:

1) When I started supporting Celtic in 92, Lisbon was only 25 years before; now it's nearly 50. It's getting harder and harder to lean on that now, especially when CL games are everywhere on the telly nowadays. Back in 92, a * of a lot of the people you might talk to remembered watching it. Even non Celtic fans remembered it (we were the first British team to win it after all). Nowadays even tne young people that watched it are all old men and ladies and to the young people of today (unless they're Celtic fans) it seems like something quaint and interesting, but not terribly relevant.

2) What is our identity nowadays? It's clear Celtic still represents a community but it's not so clear what that community actually is. It's no longer the case that our fans are overwhelmingly working class. And what about our links to Ireland? Just look at the incredibly repetitive arguments about that on this board and you can see that's not clear cut anymore. As for any form of political expression, well Holyrood, the Police service and possibly even our own board are doing their best to put an end to that.

3) Be honest, have we really played the celtic way since Burns? We played some nice football under MON, but I think that had more to do with the quality of player we had then. Maybe Lenny's first season, I don't know. What is clear is that this is no longer a consistent part of our identity. I think Walter Smith killed it, personally. Too many times spent watching Burns' teams play them off the park, them defend ugly, Goram makes his two obligatory wonder saves and then they go up the park and score a scrappy, ugly goal.
I'd go further and say it's probably impossible for us to play the Celtic way right now.


So where does that leave our fans? The league is now seen as a "pub league" and we're watching enviously as English clubs strut around bloated on the financial equivalent of steroids. Is it any wonder we get defensive and irrationally attached to really quite trivial aspects of our club. I know I (for example) got far more attached to and proud of our CL home record than is healthy for a grown man. I've had to unlearn that this last 14 months. It's been painful but probably good for my mental health. Others seem to have latched on to the idea that we are a bigger club than many of the English clubs whose TV money we so envy.

Basically I think you're right and it's important that you point these things out. I just think calling it arrogance is a little harsh. If anything it's closer to insecurity (although even that's a bit too harsh).

 

Are ross county and partick thistle really all that bigger and better than the likes of plymouth, portsmouth, york, etc? Going to size of club I dont see any reason to assume thry would win league 2 if they played there next season?

I bet you would have said the same about man city not that long ago. My point is simply that football stature is very liquid. Frankly I couldnt give a toss how big or small my favourite team is but no team holds a monopoly for the right to be seen as bigger than any other.

Excellent post and I agree with what you are saying. And 'arrogance' is probably too harsh a term but you get what I am saying.

 

Bearing in mind that the national team never qualifies for anything, there is surely something worthwhile in having some form of a Summer league outside of the Premier league, but they can enter there youth teams.

Better weather, better football. We need to think about having something different. The Summer is a time when football shuts down, but it's the best time in Scotland to be training outdoors.

 

You're right. Back in 2008 we were a bigger club than Man City; now they're definitely bigger than us. It's actually a good thing (I'm sure you'll agree with me here!) that football stature is still somewhat liquid: it'd get very boring if club size were set in stone forever!

There's something about the way that Man City have achieved their current size that I find hard to swallow; but Southampton are trying to grow (going by what their fans were saying in here when we sold Vic to them) in a way I can totally respect. They seem a nice club and I don't have any problem if 5 years from now they have overtaken us. I would quite like to see us grow too, though. :smiley-laughing002:
Even the idea of a so-called "lack of history" ignores the fact that clubs like Man City (whose history was less prestigious than ours) and Chelsea (whose history was comparable to ours) are making history right now: Man City are definitely catching us up and Chelsea have now left us behind. Not to mention the fact that lacking a prestigious history does not preclude having a genuinely interesting and worthwhile one. My Grandad was a Morton fan and he'd have quite rightly taken a very dim view of me claiming that his club lacked history, especially given the club he supported is older than mine!

 

Are Aberdeen, Dundee Utd, Hibernian or Hearts smaller than Morcambe, Accrington Stanley, Newport County, Fleetwood Town or Burton Albion. Is Scunthorpe United bigger than Celtic.

Going to size of club do you see any reason to assume they would win league 2 if they played there next season?

Do you think a fair comparison is to pick out the weakest in one group when comparing with another?

 

I said many teams in the SPL are more in line with League 2, not all of them.

I think 3 of the 4 you mention would compete in League 1 (I exclude Celtic as this debate is based on the level of challenge Celtic have). I think Hearts are in a similar plight to Portsmouth are at the moment and I don't think they would get out of League 2 (and a near busto Portsmouth in League 2 are still getting bigger crowds than a near busto Hearts in the top league).

Excluding those 3 who I think are at a League 1 level, I count 7 teams who currently are in the top league in Scotland and yet get smaller crowds than Plymouth, Chesterfield, Bristol Rovers, Oxford, and Southend. These clubs languishing in the bottom senior league in England have an average crowd higher than Motherwell, who have been the 'best of the rest' in recent years. A team like Northampton who are currently 2nd bottom in League 2, have higher average crowds this season than Kilmarnock, Ross County, St Johnstone, and Inverness. Even Luton who play in the conference get bigger crowds than 7 teams in the SPFL.

And on top of this, we aren't even comparing like for like. Because many of these Scottish teams are going through very successful periods relative to their own history and benchmarks - I'm thinking teams like Motherwell, Ross County, ICT and St Johnstone. And we are comparing them to many teams who are doing pretty poorly in England.

I really don't see an argument to talk these teams up against their English counterparts and based on size, crowds, and history, in most cases you need to go to League 2 to find their counterparts.

 

Virgil Van Dijk, £8m player?

From BBC Sport:

That's a wee bit worrying. Public evaluations of players are normally higher than the club's selling price. Do you remember Lennon stating in a press conference that big Victor was a £25m player? If we sell Virgil for anything less than £15m in the Summer, I'd be pretty upset. He's a more accomplished footballer than Wanyama and he still has a few years left on his contract.

 

Don't know what Mjallby was thinking saying that.

It's like a come and get him message, and for much less than we should be looking to sell him for as well.

If we have any ambition for next season we must do all we can to hold onto our best players and add quality, not get rid of it.

Edit.

It is the media though so Mjallby could have been talking about the weather for all we know. :smiley-laughing002:

 

Add another 5-6 million to that Johan.

 

Mjallby is going to * off somewhere and fire a bid in for him!

 

If wanyama is worth £12m then Virgil is worth more, simple as that.

 

This sums it up for me, but I'd be upset if we sell him for any price. He's just come into the club.

 

Wanyama proved himself in the champions league, Virgil hasnt to the same extent.