The Football Thread 2023/24: Kompany to *checks notes* Bayern?! What timeline is this?

[Ste]

Not really, I'd rather just win it a bit more than twice in 15 years.

[RetroCora]

How on earth does the Scottish league work?

They've played 35 games and there are 12 teams.

If they played against one another 3 times, it'd be a total of 33 games.

There are 3 games left, so it'll be a total of 38 games,

that gives 5 games extra? I see now they're doing bottom six and top six? so that would account for the 5 games, is that to make relegation battle fairer/more on par?

But surely if you finish comfortably 7th and win all 5 of your bottom 6 games, and the team who came 6th lost all five of their top 6 games, that would just be completely unfair for league position,

is it locked in after 33 games so 7th and 8th can't overtake 5th and 6th?

Why have i never noticed this before, why do they need so much football?

Some teams play each other 4 times a season.

You're mostly right yeah. I can try and explain this in a little more detail but it's needlessly complicated and, honestly, an ill-thought out shower of shite at the best of times. We have a 38 game season to keep the league in line with England's top division and make the package more attractive for potential television deals and, I think, keep our European teams competitive with regular football for a full season. However, the entire population of Scotland is a little over half that of the city of London, so the professional league system is naturally much smaller than England's. We have 42 teams across four leagues, something like 25-30 of which are fully professional (I think Falkirk may have been the only fully professional team in League One this season, so possible even less). The Scottish league system was a closed shop until 2014-15 as well, we've only had relegation out of the bottom league for about a decade.

Because there are so few top level teams in the country, our top league only has twelve teams, which doesn't translate into a 38 game season. So after 33 games - three rounds - the league "splits" into a title half and a relegation half, and the places are locked. Seventh place or below at the split can't finish higher than seventh, and sixth place or above can't finish lower than sixth. Theoretically without this, a team playing against weaker opponents could finish higher than a team who has a much tougher final five games and get into Europe (imagine the difference between Celtic, Rangers, Hearts and Ross County, Livingston, St Johnstone in your final three).

The post-split fixtures are worked out after the 33 matches have been played based on how many home and away games each team has left, which is where the system really shows its flaws. It can be expected that the top six will consist of Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen and somebody like Kilmarnock, Dundee United or another form club from the previous season, so the first 33 fixtures are worked out accordingly.

For example, Rangers and Celtic will always, always, have two home and two away games against one another in a season, but sometimes one of the two might have to play in a slippery away game, like at Tynecastle, Easter Road or Pittodrie, three times in order to balance out home and away fixtures because there are only five post-split matches and sometimes a surprise team makes it into the top half. This season has a couple of examples because the league was a bit funny - Aberdeen (lol get it up them) and Hibs strawberry floated it, but smaller clubs St. Mirren and Dundee made it into the top six. Spare a thought then for St. Mirren, who have had to go to Celtic Park three times this season, or St. Johnstone who have had to go to Pittodrie and play Aberdeen three times.

Of course, as I say, the whole thing is perpetuated to make Scottish football more attractive for TV deals, especially after the Setanta fiasco. Scotland's TV deal is worked out that each team will have four games televised at their home ground per season, as a way of mitigating the disproportionate amount of television time for the Glasgow teams. An extra Ol...Old...Glasgow derby, usually an extra Edinburgh derby, a couple of meaty, league deciding top of the table clashes at tough away games for the Glasgow teams mitigates a system that makes almost as much sense as a Scottish refereeing decision.

The final problem with the way Scottish fixtures work is that you find yourself playing the same teams over and over again. Celtic and Rangers played each other seven times in all competitions in 2010/11, six times in 2016/17 and five times this season by the time it's done, which is ludicrous. And strawberry floating stressful! I had to go and stand inside for the last five minutes yesterday, thank strawberry float for John Lundstram . They've played each other 440 times in domestic competition, versus 214 between Man United and Liverpool, for example.

I'm hungover and going off memory for a lot of this, so Prototype or someone can correct me on the finer details if needed. But that's the jist of how it works up here.

[Dowbocop]

I see you and raise you the Mexican Liga MX

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liga_MX

Not going to put two long posts consecutively but here's how they work out relegation:

Currently, the relegated team is determined by computing the points-per-game-played ratio for each team, considering all the games played by the team during the last three seasons (six tournaments). The team with the lowest ratio is relegated; if the team that is in last place in the relegation table is among the 12 teams qualifying for the Liguilla at the end of the Clausura tournament, the 13th place team qualifies for the Liguilla instead.

And THAT'S Go Johnny Gogogogo!

[Moggy]

Why don't Scottish football just have two 20-24 team leagues, rather than go through all of that nonsense?

[Dowbocop]

Thank strawberry float that's over. How can a team as good as we've assembled look bang average against that United side. If Casemiro hadn't pushed up in slow motion we might not have won that. Some dark juju on us at OT man, hate the place.

Still, there's going to be a Premier League trophy at the Emirates on Sunday and City will have to stop us claiming it. I'm so proud of this team for doing that

[hamm sandwich]

Great result for Arsenal there. Can’t see Tottenham putting up much of a fight in midweek but still great to see the title go down to the wire. Is Trossard the best finisher at the club?

[Ploiper]

thought we played pretty badly today but defensively we were still at it, cant think of any save of any note Raya had to make, everything seemed to be comfortable long range stuff.

[Dowbocop]

Great result for Arsenal there. Can’t see Tottenham putting up much of a fight in midweek but still great to see the title go down to the wire. Is Trossard the best finisher at the club?

Spurs are going to be a living embodiment of that Riley Reid meme face for the entire game on Tuesday, but I would love to be proved wrong!

Tim Stillman on Arseblog covered Trossard being the best finisher in a post earlier this week. Considering he was used as a sub/finisher for a lot of the season his numbers are immense.

https://arseblog.com/2024/05/leandro-tr ... -the-drum/

[Return_of_the_STAR]

twitter.com/cameronfozzi/status/1789713717124305022

Whilst I agree that is a pretty decent water feature I think there are more important things for united to spend money on at the moment.

[Albert]

If Arsenal win the league, will this be the first time a rapist gets a winner medal?

Can't be the first time surely?

[Tomous]

If Arsenal win the league, will this be the first time a rapist gets a winner medal?

Can't be the first time surely?

Ronaldo has 3

[Albert]

If Arsenal win the league, will this be the first time a rapist gets a winner medal?

Can't be the first time surely?

Ronaldo has 3

Good shout.

[RetroCora]

Why don't Scottish football just have two 20-24 team leagues, rather than go through all of that nonsense?

This would be the obvious call, and it's been mooted before, but is usually shot down pretty quickly. This is possibly big-club-supporter arrogance talking, but my theory is that it's entirely because then there'd only be two Glasgow derbies instead of four, making the league less marketable for TV deals. The SPL almost went bankrupt after a massive strawberry float up with Setanta in the late 2000s and if anything like that happens again a number of clubs will go under so there's a level of hypersensitivity all round when it comes time to negotiate deals. My memory on that is pretty hazy, but the Setanta deal caused a huge split between Celtic/Rangers and the rest of the league. A number of clubs really suffered from the knock on effects of the fiasco I think as well. Former Copa del Rey champions Motherwell nearly died and I don't think it's coincidence that three of our "big six" - Hearts, Hibs and Dundee United - have all had one or more spells in the second tier in the last fifteen years. Plus the Rangers clusterfuck, though there's a bit more at play there and I am not the guy to talk about that.

Basically a combination of financial mismanagement from individual owners and lack of revenue has damaged the structure of the league, along with the completely lopsided structure of Scottish football where two clubs hoover up the vast majority of the money available. Celtic are likely to have well over £100m in the bank if they win the league this season, which will dwarf the combined finances of every other club in Scotland. There was a stat a while back wherein we played PSG and Hamilton Academical in the same week, and the comparative difference in wage bills between Celtic and Hamilton was higher than it was between Celtic and PSG. Celtic's captain is on £37,000pw, 12th place Livingston pay their entire squad £25,800pw. As a Celtic supporter, I can genuinely see why everyone else in Scotland refers to the Glasgow teams as "toxic twins."

In the rest of this thesis, I will...

[Moggy]

Makes sense, it's all about money and the old firm. As usual.

[Wedgie]

Why don't Scottish football just have two 20-24 team leagues, rather than go through all of that nonsense?

The rest of the SPL don't want to lose the revenue they get from hosting the Old Firm at home twice along with the tv money.

[Moggy]

Why don't Scottish football just have two 20-24 team leagues, rather than go through all of that nonsense?

The rest of the SPL don't want to lose the revenue they get from hosting the Old Firm at home twice along with the tv money.

Yes, but as Cora pointed out, they are all much more likely to risk relegation in the current set up, which means no old firm game and a season (or more) of greatly reduced income.

[Cuttooth]

I get she's had her injury problems but Arsenal just letting Miedema's contract expire is certainly a choice.

[Ploiper]

i do think it's a shame we are letting her go, i dont think it's a great a loss as it would have been a couple years ago though with Russo and Blackstenius in our front line now.

[Denster]

twitter.com/cameronfozzi/status/1789713717124305022

Whilst I agree that is a pretty decent water feature I think there are more important things for united to spend money on at the moment.

The Theatre of Streams.

[<]:^D]

very good