Is a lack of real competition at home, hurting us in Europe?

It's been clear to see that over the last couple of years since the dead club passed away, We've been letting in far to many goals in especially in Europe in from really poor defensive mistakes.

Could this be related that when we play teams in the SPL home or away, our defence never gets properly tested?

It seems because VVD and Ambrose aren't given the free reign they are usually given in the SPL makes it seem like they look lost when it comes to the European front because they get told to drop deeper. Something they don't get the ability to do in a match setting unless playing in Europe.

 

Yeah we get away with so much domestically that you dont get away with in europe.

 

It's a combination of an unambitous board and a team that isn't good enough. Lyon for example used to dominate the french league for nearly a decade but were getting past the groups of the cl nearly every year.

 

Definitely. You can lose the ball or the person you are marking once in Europe and you will be punished. Whereas in the SPL you could get away with it.
There was an example a couple of weeks ago when Matthews allowed Pawlett a free header and it went straight to Zaluska. But as you say, it is hard to practice against teams who sit back.

 

100% but this isn't a new problem, we've been suffering by and large as a result of the decline in our leagues from the end of the 80's, (thanks to the dead lot and a cheating incompetent association)

Of course we have had successful spells but going from playing a motherwell to a barca has and never will be easy( to state the obvious) and handicaps us massively..

 

Oh * yeah

 

We're in a * poor league that is unfortunately taking us down to its * level !! If you add that we dont have many players that are capable of plying their trade at a higher level ( unless you count the championship in england a higher level which I suppose it is ), and also we have a management team who dont seem to have progressed in the slightest from the start of the season , then its no surprise we're just a big fish in a small puddle nowadays !!

 

Yes, but it always has. Nothing to do with a former clubs demise. The infrastructure in our country simply doesn't support progressive thinking. We don't take sport seriously and we don't finance it appropriately.

We're a small country, but we're bigger than Uruguay. Yet for every Suarez, we have a Maloney. For every Cavani we have a fletcher.

There's something badly wrong with our approach, but it has nothing to do with a shower of disgusting bigots being removed from the league.

 

there needs to be a massive investment in indoor pitches to help develop skills and fitness. scotland in general has poor diets and sports science and education. that needs changing.
We need to start recruiting better coaches at the key development ages of young players.
we need clubs producing more home grown players will greater fitness and skills levels.
We need clubs in the top tier to retain their best young managers and coaches to help their various clubs develop and improve and win cups and qualify for the later rounds in Europe.
Hopefully aberdeen, hearts, dundee united and hibs will start improving and target progress in europe. Thats what their fans want.

 

Its not really the lack of competition, almost all League lack competition.

It's the shitebag mentality of Scottish teams, nobody in Scotland ever comes to Celtic Park to try and out play and beat us, they come to sit back, see if they can * a goal and time waste.

And when the diddy teams play each other most of the time the matches are very cagey.

Then when our teams play in Europe against teams who are used to playing more open, normal football every week they're not used to it and struggle.

We have a negative view going into football I think it is, where for example if you compared us with similar teams like Feyenoord, PSV, Ajax, Salzburg, Basel - those teams go into games against the likes of Barcelona or PSG or that, knowing they aren't as good but they generally don't change their style, they try to keep the ball and attack as well as they can and if they get beat they get beat. Where as we go into our shell and attempt to avoid a beating, losing by 3/4/5 against better teams for us is seen as embarassing or people are raging where as other similar teams to us can accept more that they are just a weaker team and probably going to get beat but they still try to play as normal. Then when those types of teams come up against each other they are confident that because they are playing a similar level team they will win, when we again panic when we play similar level teams and end up playing defensively against them as well or not our normal game because we're not used to playing with confidence against decent teams - we view decent teams as teams who might beat us so we try to stop them before we think about beating them, other teams like Salzburg and Ajax dont they see each other as teams they can beat so just take them on as normal and go for the win.

 

No it's been like this for years. We punched well above our weight when it came to our European antics.

The down sizing of the squad, selling star players and replacing them with loaned players is and will continue to hurt us.

 

Games are you watching we don't conceed chances in league???

 

yes but it is not a new problem .People are very nostalgic when looking at days gone by but i can tell you MON team in the early noughties made some awful mistakes defensively in the CL , as did Strachans. It is inevitable if a defence is largely untested it will become less effcent and prone to lapses in concentration and will be found out against good european opposition.

 

Yes but it is nothing new.

Although we did used to have competition to win the league,thay has now gone.
So with that and lack of $$$ it is impossible to attract decent proven players.

We are just miles behind most othrr leagues in Europe.

 

Could you explain why it's the fault of Rangers and the SFA that we've had a decline in our league?

 

The huns did ruin the game up here, the most competitive the League ever was was the early to mid 80s.

Then the Old Club starting spending money they never had to buy success, think in 1988 they had only won 3 titles in something like 22 year then bought Butcher, Wilkins etc and spending got bigger and bigger for the next 15 years, forcing other teams to then spend money they never have, which ended up with everyone in debt in the early 2000s which lead to regression in the mid 2000s and lead the huns to their death.

The spending(all on foreigners) also meant that less Scottish players came through and Scotland also vastly declined over the years due to that as everyone was buying foreign players and youth wasnt getting a chance.

If they hadnt kicked off the big spending in the later 80s, Scottish football would have continued to progress as normal, was them who * everything up and now as we stand here today Scottish football is a lot worse than it would probably have been if it had a more natural progression.