Lebowski
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Posts posted by Lebowski
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It's Heckingbottom. Happy to work with the staff there. Happy to work with a director of football.
If you keep him away from transfers he will potentially be decent. He wildly underestimated the league after starting off on fire at Hibs and recruited players not good enough/who took too long to adjust to save him.0 -
Have Stranraer attempted to join the shitness protection scheme yet?
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1. I don't think you've understood what I've written if you think that's what I'm saying. I'm saying that the impact on Hearts is identical to a relegation from a full season. And that was as full a season as we were getting in the circumstances.1. Backing away from your previous post, I see. It was interesting to see that deep down you actually fully agree with Hearts' argument.
2. I think the footballing argument comes second to the financial argument in times like these. We can take an imperfect league on the chin for a couple of years if it helps the game overall.
2. Weirdly I don't think that football should come second in a football league.2 -
1. Hearts did finish bottom. It was a truncated league, but you finished bottom of it. The penny will drop when you rock up to Recreation Park next season maybe.1) Yes. And that is the very point. My goodness, you've just made my point. It did not hit later. Hearts did not finish bottom. Yet we are being punished as if we did, as well as taking the pandemic hit like everyone else. Can you see that you've just made Hearts' argument here?
2) Yes. But reconstruction would not really change that. How much worse would it get for Hibs if they shared tv money 14 ways instead of 12? It's not comparable to Hearts losing millions of pounds. It's a very obvious point. Also, let's not forget that the impact on Hibs' first team remains to be seen. You may end up wishing you'd been playing in a 14-team league.
2. It's not just about prize money. That's my point. A 14 team league would be worse than what we currently have financially, and football wise.1 -
1. The millions it will cost Hearts will be identical to the millions it would cost Hearts if the pandemic had hit 2 months later and you'd finished bottom. That's just relegation and it happens every season. I'm not going to deny that Hearts can consider themselves unlucky.1) Again, here we've got the false conflation of Hibs dropping a league position and Hearts being relegated. You're not remotely comparing apples with apples. Take a step back and consider that. Also, I've accepted that clubs are losing money. Relegation aside, that applies to Hearts as much as anyone else. Look at our immediate reaction in terms of pay cuts etc. Why add millions to Hearts' losses based on a season with 20% to go? Saying 'We dropped a league position' doesn't really cut it here. There was an opportunity to basically look out for each other as clubs and share this around. The extra damage to other clubs would have been limited. The idea Hearts would have strolled off smoking a cigar is nonsense. We're already fighting the financial fire. And we've not even touched on the potential implications for Thistle of being fired off to a league with negligible away supports, low revenues, and an unsure start date. That's scandalous. 2) You seem to be on the same horse here. And you're misrepresenting my argument and misrepresenting the financial impact of reconstruction. It was going to be bad either way. Look at what's happening to Hibs anyway. It's not as if reconstruction would have closed the doors. Hearts have already had to cut salaries and are now looking at taking another hit of millions of pounds. 3) I just disagree with you here. I don't think any part of that stands up.2. I'm saying that there are real world impacts based on what Hearts proposed for reconstruction. Ones that Hearts fans seem to be wilfully ignoring because it doesn't suit them.
3. You're obviously not very cynical. I am. And that's exactly what it looks like. I'm pretty sure that the new TV deal contractually must begin in early August based on the actions of the SPFL and the urgency for the decision regarding ending the season.
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1. The new TV deal is higher than the current one. But it's not by that much. And it is with a backdrop of likely catastrophic drop offs in other income like sponsorship (both for league and individual clubs) corporate/hospitality sales, and also potentially crowds. There's going to be a fucking enormous revenue drop for everyone as there's going to be a hard global recession. Just waving that away isn't realistic.1) Because Hearts were robbed of more than 20% of their games to avoid that fate. People seem to just write that off, but it's of fundamental importance to the point.
The rest of your paragraph actually argues my point. Your club will lose a couple of hundred grand and under reconstruction would only have lost a tiny bit more, which may end up being balanced out by the new tv deal anyway. Certainly not far off. While my club is left with losses of millions of pounds based on a season where we had 20% of our games cancelled and games we had already played recontextualised after the fact. Good draws became bad draws etc.
2) No. I've addressed this point several times. Of course clubs would have lost a bit. But, as mentioned above, the new tv deal would pick up some of that slack and the overall losses would not be at a catastrophic level for anybody. Basically equivalent to a bit of a drop in crowds due to bad form. That's what sharing the burden means. Also, as pointed out previously, clubs in the lower half would benefit from a few season of it being easier to stay up. That's a much bigger deal than a slight drop in crowds. If St Mirren go down in the play-offs next season, they may reflect on whether a 14-team league was a good idea for them or not.
3) I don't disagree with you here. I think there are lots of decent arguments about how the lower leagues should/could be restructured. However, in a situation with so many moving parts, I think asking any one person to get the whole thing right is unrealistic. I've mentioned before that for this reason I think reconstruction should have been temporary for 3-5 years to allow nobody to be disproportionally punished by this situation while giving Scottish football a window of a few years to properly sit down and work out how to organise the leagues long-term (with the option of going back to what we already had on the table along with anything else). I think that's clearly the solution that makes most sense and does least undue harm.
You can argue it all you like, but no club is ever going to quietly accept being relegated with over 20% of the season to play. We had a way out of this scenario, but clubs have chosen not to take it.
And yes the season finished early. But final positions were done on points per game which was about the fairest solution available. There weren't points left to play for. I'm not moaning about Hibs dropping a position because I accept that the reason that happened is because the remaining fixtures couldn't be fulfilled.
2. Overall losses are already catastrophic. Hibs seem likely to announce a large wave of redundancies amongst non playing staff by all accounts. Aberdeen seem to be on a similar path. You can't just handwave away asking them to take further drops in income and likely having to increase the number of people they are having to make redundant because Hearts feel hard done by. Clubs are going to try and protect their revenues. I think Hearts fans are completely oblivious on the consequences of revenue dropping for the 41 clubs without benefactors.
3. Budge didn't get any part right. She was given the responsibility to come up with something because if it was someone outwith Hearts and it didn't pass there would be accusations of a lack of effort. Consultation was non existent. She was told no to start with. She then presented the same plan another twice with the only changes being it was a fortnight later. A cynic might suggest she knew it wouldn't pass but dragging it out for as long as possible would maybe give a bit of leverage as it could interfere with the start of the league when beginning legal action.3 -
Hearts would be subject to a minimum of double the prize money they could get in the division they were relegated to. That's not a hit. If crowds are allowed back Hearts would get much higher crowds than in the Championship. That's not a hit. The league couldn't be finished, the positions were set from points per game. The outstanding Rangers St Johnstone game saw 3.4 points awarded from it meaning my club lost a league position and a couple of hundred grand in prize money.What I'm proposing is1) Yes, compounding the financial hit taken by other clubs, but by a relatively tiny amount. Not a game-changer.
2) Hearts would also be subject to that hit.
3) Clubs who did not get their chance to play their way out of relegation on the pitch would not take a massively disproportionate hit.
I think that's as fair a solution as there was available. As it is, a very small number of clubs are being punished for finding themselves in trouble with a fifth of the season still to play. That's a nonsense.
And you've entirely ignored the other financial repercussions from the proposed reconstruction outwith prize money. Clubs in the top 6 would have 1 less home game. Clubs in the bottom 8 would see way lower crowds as 40% of their season was played amongst themselves and likely without many large away supports. This is without going into relegation places being increased if its temporary, or never being able to change it if it was permanent due to the voting structure. If there was a decent reconstruction proposal put forward clubs would have said yes to it. But the hit Premier clubs would have taken from the proposed reconstruction would have been bad for years down the line.
So why should clubs have voted for that?
The one which would have passed and met your criteria of sharing the pain a bit would have been a 12 team Championship. But oddly that was never proposed by Anne Budge despite it solving the issues for Partick, Falkirk, Stranraer, Edinburgh City, Brora Rangers, and Kelty Hearts.
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Every club has taken a massive hit already. What you're proposing is for that financial hit being compounded so the worst clubs in their leagues aren't relegated, and also making the league worse. Which is not coincidentally why it failed to gather support.It's a global pandemic. Read the papers. All clubs are struggling. Add in that Hearts, like everyone else in the top flight, would have lost a small slither of tv money and what more do you want, exactly?
That's what sharing the burden means. Other clubs join us in taking a small hit rather than insisting that we take a huge hit while they take a small one. It's a very simple point and one I can only assume you are pretending not to understand.0 -
They've aw been wanking each other off on Kickback and convincing themselves about whatever saves them. To summarise;WTF is going on with you lot?They knew there wouldn't be a vote to end the league [emoji735]
And that it wouldn't pass [emoji735]
And that it would be overturned because of Dundee's vote being ineligible [emoji735]
The **** dossier was going to both pass a vote and see the SPFL chief exec and lawyer emptied [emoji735]
Reconstruction was going to pass. 3 different times [emoji735]
Doncaster was going to force through reconstruction [emoji735]
You'd think they'd get fucking tired of being wrong, but nope, every single time they talk themselves into the next one definitely working. They're the football equivalent of a serial shoplifter continuously walking into the same shop, stealing the same thing, and getting lifted every time. Fucking halfwits.
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Name them. And explain why Hearts didn't suggest them in their proposals.There were plenty of chances to reconstruct the leagues in a fair way to avoid punishing member clubs but the small minded clubs opted for self interest. This is the last resort.1 -
I think it's probably been prompted by the return to training and players coming off furlough, along with the government furlough amounts tapering down. We'll be back playing football in front of no crowds for the moment so no discernible increase in revenues for that.It looks like we've handled this badly, by trying to do the right thing initially by staff, wage referrals and no immediate redundancies. It's no surprise we're toiling, revenue has been halved, but we won't be the only ones.
You can't blame the players if they're asked to take big cuts, while we sign players. Any player wage cuts should have been sorted out earlier, not on the eve of resuming training and while we're looking to add to the squad.
Most of the article is obviously rumour and so on, but it's bad PR for the club.
I don't see how we can sign players in this environment unless we agree informally with players currently at the club that they'll go back on to their original contracts with a year extension when revenue recovers.1 -
August is when they're looking to finish this seasons tournament. There's already provisional dates. The SPFL will schedule one of the OF games for that point so that it's postponed till later in the season as Rangers still have their second leg to play.Think they best hold off until UEFA provide all the dates for next season European qualifiers . We will find out within a day but I would not be amazed if they designate the whole of August as a catch up month for qualifiers for next season , that might mean weekend European qualifiers.Most leagues will be starting their new seasons sometime in September , so I doubt there will be any consideration if Scotland are away on a new season on their own
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The motivation to do so is that they outbid BT by around 10m a season. Both haemorrhaged subscriptions at the start of lockdown when there was no football on. Giving Sky an opportunity to re negotiate would have been a spectacularly stupid decision. If it couldn't start due to government imposed restrictions at the start of August, then you've got a decent argument for not accepting a renegotiation. Not starting it in August because you've decided to play another 8 rounds of fixtures, plus play offs (which would be including sides who wouldn't be able to field a team) doesn't seem like it's quite as good an excuse.This is what I wonder too.
In years to come people may look at the number of other leagues around the continent who found solutions to player registration issues and got their seasons finished. Somebody will be relegated in Austria and there will be no court case and no risk of a hefty pay out. Likewise in Poland, Switzerland, Russia etc.
Would Sky really have torn the contract to shreds if asked to delay the start for a few weeks so the season could be finished when we got the all-clear to play? I don't see any motivation for them to do so. Did the SPFL ask them?
Unless of course you think sky wouldn't care about potentially saving around 50m.
Remember, just to allow clubs to sell their own games for streaming with no involvement from Sky required Celtic and Rangers to fall into line with other clubs and allow 5-6 home fixtures to be shown by them.1 -
Aye, keep the young players under contract, but there will be no league for them to play in.To be expected, it’s a shame that so many non playing staff will likely lose their jobs. I’d imagine we’ll scrap the youth team for next season as there’s chat that Nish, Murray and Makel are leaving along with Combe.0 -
http://www.hibernianfc.co.uk/news/10650
Revenue halved they reckon. Redundancies to come I'd imagine.0 -
I'm pretty confident that something which done no harm to anyone would have passed easily. But it doesn't exist.That would be great, but because of PTFC "keeping their counsel", I am left to assume that PTFC would have quite happily voted for 14-14-14 and passed the "pain and financial harm" onto other sides, who weren't even consulted during the reconstruction talks. As would Hearts/Stranraer.
"Choose to do no harm" indeed. I hope we are quite determined in harbouring a grudge.
Increasing the premier league size means a drop in prize money for each position, or the possibility of having less than half the current minimum if you finish 13th or 14th if you don't change the distribution.
A 14 team league will generate less revenue for every side in the lower part of it than it does currently. That's half the league.
What the clubs asking for reconstruction are looking for is for them not to bear the brunt of it. Instead they're saying everyone else should take the hit. In an environment where clubs are flush with cash that might have been possible. Now? No happening.0 -
It is aye.Is that the guy that does Hibs stats analysis?
I quite like the idea of a 16 team league. It would allow some of the larger Championship clubs like Dundee, Dunfermline, Ayr, QoS and Hearts something to aim for in the coming season and they would all have some skin in the game.0 -
Actually like this idea. It's something I'd like to see introduced. 2021/22 seems like it would work for a time frame.
Honestly, it does address lots of the issues people have with the 14 team proposal. Split isn't ridiculously early (3 games earlier than now). Sides would see a pathway to getting in the top 8 more than the top 6. Everyone plays the same number of games.
Edit: just to clarify he's saying "playoff" when he's just meaning defining the final fixture.
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Atmospheric, like the Nuremberg rallies. Tynecastle is a toilet. The seats are shite. The access is fucking hideous. And it's mostly populated by utter wanks.The best atmospheric stadium in Scotland.
A proper ground haha. The socialist in you comes to the fore. The professional kink in the main stand is humorous.5 -
From February to May? Nah.Your memories of Pat Fenlon may be misting over already but having watched a relegation struggle more recently than you I'm pretty sure I'd have had more fun watching a "meaningless" coast into mid table repectability.Hibs weren't in trouble under Fenlon fwiw, it took Butcher to enable that. Iirc we were 7th in the league when Butcher took over.
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You do understand that clubs haven't had any income beyond what fans are putting in out of generosity for 3 months and will require it for probably at least another three? That's half a year's spending without any income other than what fans are paying. So I'd say that clubs looking to the very short term absolutely is what they should do.It's a fair way to see it. But Hibs' board would do well to look further down the line than next month's season ticket sales.There's also the fact that the proposal is absolutely shite. A split in February will see any side in the bottom 10/14 but safe from relegation playing 40% of their season with absolutely f**k all to play for. How's that better than now where you have that possible scenario for 13% of the season?
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If Hibs vote to promote Hearts without them kicking a ball in the league they were relegated to then it's not a good business decision because you're alienating a huge chunk of the support.County and Hibs (both of whom have spent time in the Championship recently) would be voting:
1) To have much less chance of being relegated than they have now.
2) To be more likely to come straight back up if they were to be relegated.
3) To have derby matches next season.
From a business point of view it's a no-brainer. Same for St Mirren. St Mirren and Accies would be unwise to vote against a 14-team league. It would be good for them. Unless you think greater likelihood of spending more time in the top flight is a bad thing.
Likewise, clubs in the Championship with their eye on promotion would perhaps do well to vote to keep Hearts out the way for next season and to ensure that in the coming years some of the 'big at that level' clubs are kept in the Premiership, making that one automatic slot plus one play-off slot more attainable. They benefit in the same way.
A 14-team top flight with a second tier having one up with one in a play-off is a great deal for Premiership clubs for whom relegation is a regular concern. Harder to go down, easier to come up. That's exactly what these clubs want.
If the boards of Hibs, or St Mirren, or Ross County, or St Johnstone, or Accies were to vote against this, their supporters would be within their rights to send angry letters asking the board to justify voting against something that is clearly of medium and long-term benefit to their club.
Relegation is a concern for all clubs outwith the OF. The current league table is not forever. Hearts had brushes with relegation in the mid-90s and again in 99 before going down in 2014. Hibs went down in 98 and 2014. Aberdeen had a close call in 1995 and were saved by stadium regulations in 2000 before being second-last again in 2004. Dundee United went down in the 90s and again recently. Kilmarnock have had close calls. Motherwell have had close calls. St Johnstone have gone between the divisions. All these clubs know that in time that will come round again.
Running a business isn't just about what's happening this year.
Hibs, and everyone else, are existing due to goodwill from their supporters buying season tickets. Fucking that to get derbies in a league where a significant amount of games will be behind closed doors? No happening.2 -
You're assuming that Celtic don't sign him young and play him in their colt team instead of him breaking through at Inverness. Because Celtic as it stands would be nowhere near good enough to field a colts team which would have a sniff of promotion.I'm not saying the path he took was wrong and would still exist with colt/B teams in league 2.
I'm saying the jump he made wouldn't be there and he would be in the Celtic first team at 20 not 23.0 -
Alex Gogic being offered a trial. Thought he was the key man for Accies last season? Should really know enough about him already to be confident in offering a contract I’d have thought. Seems like the exact kind of player we need in midfield.
https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/sport/football/hibs-transfer-news-alex-gogic-18394516.amp?__twitter_impression=trueBut Ross has warned any recruitment is “on hold” until the financial impact of Scottish football’s shutdown can be properly assessed.1
The Hibernian Thread
in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
Posted