But you Norwich fans are telling us the SPL is a "farce" Surely in your mighty and all powerful Premier League you'd be able to attract the worlds best players? Celtic have 19 International players in the first team squad and Rangers have, at my count, 16 at the minute. The fact is most SPL fans are sick of hearing what some clueless English ****s who've probably never seen Scottish football outside of the occasional Old Firm game. Beat it ya dicks
The thing is Venom, it depends how you define 'farce' I reckon if you have a ten-team league, but year after year only two teams compete for the title, and, year after year, it's the same two teams, I think that could justifiably be called a farce! Not meaning to be disrespectful, but that is how we see it from down here!
with all due respect to celtic, almost all norwich's players are british. celtic may have plenty of full internationalists (whatever that means!) but they come from such forces as Honduras, Mexico, Sweden, Greece, Korea, Sierra Leone, Poland, Norway, Israel, Kenya and even Scotland there are no spanish internationals, no germans, no brazilians, no dutch internationals. not even any english. so to suggest that celtic would do well in england with that team is laughable. however, if celtic ever played in england (which i hope never happens for too many reasons to mention) then with the tv money they would improve rapidly and become a top 6 team within probably three or four years. but don't go telling us that celtic have a team full of internationals - that means jack if they aren't top internationals! ipswich probably have more full internationals than norwich - check out where they are...
You really are a bit of a moron. My point was facetious, the perception of quality is in the eyes of the beholder. So you believe the SPL is a "farce" when I believe that the Premier League is full over over-paid, over-hyped players and badly supported mid-table teams. You lot can cling onto the belief that you have a competitive league that's the "Worlds Best". But the fact that you arrogant ****s think you know iota one about Scottish football is laughable.
err, listen up dickhead. find me anywhere on this thread or any other where i have said the spl is a 'farce'. while you are at it, find me where i've ever said the premier league is the 'best in the world'. for your information, i've watched a lot of scottish football although i haven't so much in the last couple of years. i can fully assess the standard of the league because i've also watched my own team compete in three of the four divisions in england over the past three years. the spl as an overall package is equivalent to no higher than the middle of the championship - that is as honest as i can be about it. overall, it is low on quality - that does not mean you don't have some decent matches. as i say, if rangers and celtic came to england they would end up in the upper echelons but they wouldn't with their current teams, in fact, i think they'd be below norwich at the moment.
"I haven't watched Scottish football in years but I still feel eminently qualified to made judgement on it" As I said before; quality, or the lack of it, is entirely dependent on each individual. The fact you believe Norwich are better than either of the Old Firm without watching them play is nothing more than an indicator of blinkered English arrogance. I've seen Norwich play many times this season. Lots of heart and passion, extremely lacking in skill. They would struggle to split Celtic and Rangers up here frankly. They'd finish 3rd most likely.
utterly utterly pathetic post venom i still watch scottish football, i just don't see it live - i watch it on tv! i used to get to a game regularly for over ten years before!! if you think norwich lack skill then you clearly are the one who hasn't been watching. likewise swansea would be equally capable of beating either rangers or celtic. any of the top teams in england, over the course of a season, not a one off game, would comfortably attain a higher league standing than either of the old firm. as i said, the potential of the two clubs to attract better players would mean that, given time, they could compete in england near the top but they wouldn't as it stands today. the very fact you think norwich would finish 3rd in scotland sums up that you know the league is poor overall. we may be 8th as it stands in england but the points difference between 8th and 15th is fairly minimal and we could easily finish that far down the pecking order. i watch lots of football at many levels of the game and i was totally honest in my assessment. its not the eye of the beholder that determines whether there is any quality! its the eye of the beholder thats determines whether they enjoy it or not. football in scotland has been in decline for years and years and it shows no signs of getting better; in fact, the rangers situation, although inevitable, will make the league worse still. i am of the opinion that the premier league is in its weakest state for about ten years. last time we were in the top flight six years ago the league was far more difficult than it is today, and i think clubs performances in europe illustrate perfectly that its weaker. however, there is still more flair and ability shown in a match between wigan and bolton than is shown when rangers meet hearts or celtic meets aberdeen, and that is because of finance - nothing more nothing less. if the old firm had the same finance, they would be streets ahead of wigan and bolton. as it stands, they are not.
I'm sorry I missed the start of this when it was fairly sensible before some spoon-fed self propaganda believers went on the "Scottish football is **** - English football is da best" nonsense. I would've thought the top two (runaway) teams in the EPL getting beasted out of the Champions League might've woken you all up - no? OK, perhaps the only English team left in the CL getting their arses handed to them by Milan would do it - no? Last time we played at the San Siro, we drew 0-0 with AC Milan in the last 16 CL game at Parkhead, then we went to Milan and lost to a Kaka goal in extra time and should've buried them in the original 90 mins - this was a far better Milan team than the one that routinely dismantled Arsenal the other night. I actually quite like Norwich - the Sutton brothers are Norwich fans and Lambert is a legend. If some fans in England persist in rubbishing other leagues and exalting the Murdoch debt "paradise" in which they reside just now, it reminds me of Rangers fans last year laughing at the idea that their team would go into administration. I hope Norwich continue to grow over the next couple of seasons and make a dent of the super-overdraft-funded Manc and London teams at the top. PS - Is it true that, at the Monday night game a few weeks ago, you guys were singing "Tell all the Huns you know, that we've got Grant Holt and you've no"? It probably isn't true but it would be funny
see my post above. most fans do not believe the premier league is great. it is however, far better than the scottish premier league. and no, its not true that we were singing that song.
Nice of you comparing leagues, the bottom team gets fifty million for finishing there , our winners get 2 million . Our team has improved in the last couple of years since we got to the last 16 of the champions league , at the moment our average age is 22 with Brown and Samaras aged 26 the oldest players. Man utd England top team rely on Giggs and Scholes , the standard of United's play is alarming , we also had this debate way back in 02/03 when we beat 2 of England top 6 on the way to Seville . Remember the other classic Henrik could only score in the spl , before he joined utd and Barcelona
Really? A quick read of GC on here would seem to confirm that most supporters of Murdoch teams DO think it's still the best league in the world. ...and fair play to your previous post (which wasn't visible when I wrote mine) admitting that the funding of said leagues is the balance-tipper. But you accept that the premise that the current English league is built on (i.e funds from a politically motivated Aussie Nazi) is entirely unsustainable? The new UEFA responsible management rules will see English teams performing worse and worse in Europe like they would have hammered Rangers if they weren't already fooked. We operate with an average of £1.3million a year TV money - our funding comes from our own revenue streams like worldwide merchandising, ticket sales, player sales, etc etc as well as having two billionaires on our board. If every EPL team except Man U had to operate with the lack of the premier league's and Sky's support, they wouldn't survive unless the wage structure was overhauled from top to bottom. Many English fans have expressed an idea that Celtic are goosed without Rangers - this is mainly based on their own infrastructures reliance on TV funding.
exactly harry. its not rangers or celtic's fault that they play in the league they do. however, you cannot compare the qualities of giggs and scholes to the likes of brown and samaras! giggs and scholes have both been world class footballers and in my opinion, both are probably two of united's best players. scott brown is a very average midfielder and samaras is probably not even that good. to compare the four players is frankly laughable. united may not be as strong as they were three years ago but they still possess some outstanding footballers, most of which would walk into the celtic team. my point is that its crazy to suggest that celtic and rangers are capable of competing on a regular basis with english teams - they just cannot cope financially as it stands. you are guessing based in one-off matches played in europe. norwich might lose to leicester tomorrow in the fa cup - we won't lose because they are better than us overall, they just might play better on the day. in a league setup, with your current players, you would not cope with the vast majority of english teams over the course of a season. as for larsson, he was a top player and probably the best talent to play in scotland from abroad. it would have been interesting to see how he'd have faired at his peak in either england or spain but i think he'd have been a success. he did ok for both clubs when he was in his mid-30s!
