capt_oats

#sadnessinhiseyes

The sheer volume of piss being boiled....

By my count 2012/13. Coincidentally the same season where McCall rolled over to the new version of Rangers in the league cup...while they were in League 2 and we were top of the league.

McKinstry on the bench for Leeds tonight against Newcastle (Gillespie on the bench for them).

"I feel like I can be the difference. I want to be the difference." Kevin "The Difference" van Veen.

I think the thing with van Veen is that he feels like someone who hasn't quite adjusted to the erm...nuances of Scottish fitba' and specifically Scottish refereeing. Which in itself isn't that surprising as he's only just in the door but the flip of that is that on initial impressions I genuinely don't think he gives a f**k either way. He's absolutely not here for Willie Collum's bullshit or the unspoken idea that you're supposed to treat certain teams with "respect". Him getting the entire Aberdeen bench bent out of shape to the point they're getting themselves booked and sent off just by him being him was special. That's a talent. It's a skill.

I'm not suggesting he's value for money but it seems clear to me that his role is to administer the game per the rules and articles of association along with whatever is mandated by the members (the clubs) while negotiating whatever commercial deals he's able to as best he can and also acting as the punchbag that @craigkillie and @Dons_1988 describe. If you look at that £400k in context, the Barclays were paying their chief exec more than double that (before bonuses/incentives) in 1999. If the clubs want someone whose job it is to attract investment and/or develop and grow the "brand" then it's on the clubs as stakeholders to make that clear and look to either create a role that prioritises commercial activity or make it a priority for the chief executive. Ultimately that requires investment since the way the SPFL is set up redistributes cash back to the members. As I said though, part of the problem is that you have a complete disconnect between wants/needs through the league from top to bottom. Other than potentially generating more cash for the league as a whole will any of the concerns of Aberdeen, Dundee, Hibs, Hearts or United be relevant to Albion Rovers, Cowdenbeath or East Fife? I'd guess...probably not. As I say, I'm pretty cynical about the motivation behind these specific 5 clubs pushing for a review however that's not to say a review isn't needed. It's a question of what they're actually trying to achieve with it though.

Aye, there were a couple of earlier Tweets with those numbers. How accurate they are IDK. So with us scoring 8 goals so far that gives us about a 31% conversion rate of shots on target. Compared with 15% for Livi and 23% for St Mirren with St Johnstone on 13%. Celtic are 35%, Rangers are 34%. Interestingly (or not) Hibs are 37% and Hearts 41% based on those numbers.

Aye, that's definitely a thing. I'd mentioned in an earlier post that we seem to have focused on getting the ball into high % areas rather than a general "put crosses into the box" which was very much Robinson's thing. I'm fairly sure that Watt's header against Dundee is the furthest out we've scored from all season. Both Van Veen's goals have been 6 yard headers, Ojala's as well. Watt's goal against your lot was around the penalty spot. Watt and Grimshaw's goals were from about 3 yards against Livi. Even in the LC Lawless and Maguire's goals were from about 10-12 yards, Amaluzor was inside the 6 yard box, Watt and Lamie's were headers around 6 yards. Woolery's was just inside the 18 yard box IIRC. From a total of 14 we've scored this season 9 have been from the 6 yard line or closer.

By the by, we apparently have the highest % of shots on target in the league.

10 year deal please.

Taking my cynical hat off for a second and overlooking the massive coincidence that the 5 pushing this "review" happen to be the clubs who have had substantial investment from outside partners or "benefactors" or in the case of the Dundee clubs have been propped up by US owners setting fire to cash in their respective money pits with no immediate sign of a return on their investment. The problem with the SPFL is the SPFL itself. The wants/needs of the majority of the top league sides are entirely different to teams in League 2. So there's a disconnect there. If the concern is about the marketing of the league then a good first step would be to actually invest properly in marketing. At the moment though, the SPFL is set up to distribute the cash back to the clubs - if the clubs want to change that it's their money and their choice to enact that. Aside from the hilarity of Hearts being relegated with 8 games to go while kicking and screaming their way through the courts (and being relegated anyway despite what the ITK legal eagles on JKB were predicting) that whole episode last year showed how difficult it is a) to establish common ground and b) enact change in the current set up. Similarly it highlighted what Doncaster's role actually is, rather than what people want to think it should be. He's an administrator lads. If clubs want a commissioner or the like then go out hire one and be prepared to pay them properly. Again, that's up to the clubs to make that choice. Establishing a brand takes time and it also takes joined up thinking. Ultimately, short term at least, the point @PauloPerth makes is correct...you can change the names of the leagues, give everything a lick of paint but at the moment the players/teams ie: the "product" will be exactly the same. Longer term? Absolutely, increased investment should be something that is welcomed but it's not something that going to happen just because Diamond Dave Cormack and Ron The Con will it to be so. What's the strategy? It's surely not just "demand more money for "the product""? If the concern is about a lack of investment then establish a role that focuses on that and make sure their KPIs and renumeration reflect what you're asking them to do. There are huge flaws with the SPFL and who knows, maybe this independent report will actually address them in some meaningful way. If it does then great.

Van Veen to completely unnecessarily scoop McGregor to score then celebrate by headbutting Gerrard IMO.

Callum Slattery is the most fouled player in the league lads. Genuinely think he's kind of went under the radar a bit given the KVV and culturally Scandinavian love that's been going around.

Vaguely related but here's a podcast from last year with Cormack (and Burrows) talking about "change" in Scottish Football. I'd imagine it might give a "flavour" of the direction this report might go. So if you want to give it a listen...have at it. Cards on the table, I didn't make it far...I mean, Jim Spence and Roger Mitchell? Yikes. Solidly in the not for me category. Direct link to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/it/podcast/ayne-243-is-scottish-football-investable/id1438454748?i=1000475642643&l=en

Is that not part of the problem/point though? The SPFL is simply an administrative body. If clubs want some sort of change then it's up to them to enact it. I noticed Grant Russell QTing a Daryll Broadfoot tweet on the subject (a tweet that tagged Ian Greenhill from Studio Something). There are plenty of people around the game who have a genuine interest in brand, marketing etc who I'm pretty sure have "ideas" and are very, very good at their jobs. One of the (many) problems is that the SPFL in and of itself is limited to what it has the budget to do because by and large it simply redistributes money back to the clubs so there's not a lot of scope for blue sky thinking.

I could be wrong, and happy to stand corrected if I am, but do Dundee not shift fewer season tickets now than when the Americans took over?

It'll end up recommending exactly what those commissioning want it to recommend. So given the recent comments from Ron Gordon and previous from Budge I'd expect it'll be recommending binning the teams in the seaside leagues or whatever. Basically whatever is in their interests is what it'll put forward.

Also depends on who's on album cycle and who isn't. Radiohead have headlined plenty festivals up here but if they're not touring then you're not going to get them doing a one-off. As you say the line-up for the first Connect is pretty much as 'alternative' as you'd get festival wise. It wasn't DF but Indian Summer was another one that leaned 'alternative' but only lasted a couple of years. I'd genuinely be interested to see what sort of numbers a festival with a Pitchfork or Primavera type line-up would do tbh. Do you get 50k per day or whatever turning out to a festival headlined by Massive Attack, Pavement, The National, Nick Cave and Tyler etc? As an aside, the 2022 Primavera line-up is absolutely off the scale. Fucking. Hell.

Surely you include the European and cup games as well? So really, it's 12 games played so far? I mean, fair enough giving the first round of fixtures to judge but still...more than 5 games.

Yeah, it was kind of difficult for it not to seem like sour grapes that Aberdeen had 'swooped' in and got our captain and Scotland international on a free but really, there was no lie in what most of us were saying. If you got the 19/20 version you were getting a very, very good defender (and tbf, there's still plenty time for him to come good) but if you get the 20/21 version with the expectation of an "international defender" and captain material with renumeration to match then you're massively overpaying for what you've brought in. There was a fair bit of chat about him on our thread yesterday after the "revelation" that he's deleted his Twitter and it's clear there's a good way to leave Motherwell (eg: Allan Campbell) and a bad way. Big Dec has definitely landed on the bad side of that rule.