Who’s best equipped to go up and stay up?

[D'Jaffo]

6 minutes ago, CALDERON said:

It's said every year that the team who win the league will come straight down,  but when was the last time that actually happened?

Pars? 

[Cutty Old]

On 23/03/2023 at 12:33, TxRover said:

Who is best equipped for promotion…no one. That’s the basic problem with fitba, isn’t it. The Premiership is designed like a very nice club, with all the members eager for the occasional new member to drain dry and discard. It’s like a sleigh-load of people rushing through the woods being chased by wolves, they have to toss someone off now and then to lighten the load and slow the wolves down…then they get a little breathing room and someone new parachutes onto the back, slowing them down again. At that point, the new arrival has to fight their way forward to survive and push another off the back. On the whole, you might argue for Dundee, as the best of a load of bad choices.

Queen’s can’t be best equipped because their home ground is the most spectacular clusterf**k since Operation Barbarossa.

Dundee can be questioned as the best equipped because of a yo-yo propensity, indicative of a club management scheme that is dysfunctional.

Ayr’s stumbling efforts of recent times raise questions of management and ownership commitment.

Partick are still in the middle of whatever the hell is going on with their management and ownership structure.

Morton are now “fan owned”, and unlikely to have the necessary resources.

Raith are in what seems to be their traditional ownership waffle with financial concerns.

ICT are reputed to make Raith, at least financially, look stable and secure.

Cove have proven they are probably not ready for the Championship, let alone the Premiership.

Arbroath’s team has aged out, and the rebuild isn’t going to plan.

The Accies have management that makes the incompetence at SVB look positively good by comparison, and appear on a trajectory for the Lowland a league.

Just glanced at the Ayr United comment. I'm not sure what your comments are based on. 

Ownership commitment: The owner has taken the club forward in great strides, building a new hub, following up with a new stand, created new positions of Managing Director and Recruitment (Officer), has opened up excellent communications with fans. 

Management Commitment: Lee Bullen has left his comfortable youth coaching role at Sheffield Wednesday to accept the challenge of football Manager at Ayr United, coming to Ayr, with his family still in Yorkshire. He has gone all-in with his attempt to improve his team who currently lie third in the table and pays great attention to the youth academy and community sections of the club. 

 

[CityDave94]

38 minutes ago, CALDERON said:

It's said every year that the team who win the league will come straight down,  but when was the last time that actually happened?

[DeeTillEhDeh]

8 hours ago, approximately dave said:

ICT would easily stay up, regaining the natural order ahead of County, finish in the top six and once again being feared by Celtic. They still have nightmares about us.

Its only this current tricky first obstacle we need to overcome.

Getting rid of Dodds and Gardner?

[CityDave94]

1 minute ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

Getting rid of Dodds and Gardner?

This before the step before this mysterious thing called winning can take place. I fear only administration and eventual fan ownership can rid us of those who are not Inverness CT minded.

 

[Crawford]

1 hour ago, approximately dave said:

This before the step before this mysterious thing called winning can take place. I fear only administration and eventual fan ownership can rid us of those who are not Inverness CT minded.

 

Dodds is a jug eared c**t. Scottish football's genital wart.

[CALDERON]

2 hours ago, D'Jaffo said:

Pars? 

Braw that'll do me.

[TxRover]

8 hours ago, Cutty Old said:

Just glanced at the Ayr United comment. I'm not sure what your comments are based on. 

Ownership commitment: The owner has taken the club forward in great strides, building a new hub, following up with a new stand, created new positions of Managing Director and Recruitment (Officer), has opened up excellent communications with fans. 

Management Commitment: Lee Bullen has left his comfortable youth coaching role at Sheffield Wednesday to accept the challenge of football Manager at Ayr United, coming to Ayr, with his family still in Yorkshire. He has gone all-in with his attempt to improve his team who currently lie third in the table and pays great attention to the youth academy and community sections of the club. 

 

While the commitment seems there off the field, at least to develop a solid Championship facility, I’m not sure it’s truly focused upon a Premiership position. As others have noted, teams that move up, often drop back down after a bit with financial concerns. For instance, the Accies have been up in ‘08, down in ‘11, back up in ‘14 and down in ‘21…and while I’ll grant the ‘17 phishing incident didn’t help their situation, it’s obvious the years of big spending while floating low in the Premiership have taken their toll as they threaten a Brechin. Similar stories can be found with Dundee, Dundee United, etc, all existing as yo-yos whose financial conditions seem, well, marginal. The top level is set up to be very difficult to secure a foothold in, and it just feels that Ayr’s leadership decided not to press too hard in the January window. Feel free to tell me I’m full of it, but it just seems that way.

Communication with the fans and development of youth are great things, but not indicative (by themselves) of a push to the top level, but more of proper business development and community relations. I got the impression that Ayr wasn’t exactly all in in the window, if that’s wrong, please elucidate.

[RandomGuy.]

5 hours ago, TxRover said:

While the commitment seems there off the field, at least to develop a solid Championship facility, I’m not sure it’s truly focused upon a Premiership position. As others have noted, teams that move up, often drop back down after a bit with financial concerns. For instance, the Accies have been up in ‘08, down in ‘11, back up in ‘14 and down in ‘21…and while I’ll grant the ‘17 phishing incident didn’t help their situation, it’s obvious the years of big spending while floating low in the Premiership have taken their toll as they threaten a Brechin. Similar stories can be found with Dundee, Dundee United, etc, all existing as yo-yos whose financial conditions seem, well, marginal.

TBF are Accies not being purposely run into the ground by their "owners" these days?

Dundee are Dundee, whereas Uniteds American owner pumped money in as he genuinely thought within 3 years theyd be challenging the OF with a squad full of youth products, while selling one or two every Summer for millions each.

I dont think you can use those 3 clubs as proof of anything really.

[Crawford]

6 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

TBF are Accies not being purposely run into the ground by their "owners" these days?

Dundee are Dundee, whereas Uniteds American owner pumped money in as he genuinely thought within 3 years theyd be challenging the OF with a squad full of youth products, while selling one or two every Summer for millions each.

I dont think you can use those 3 clubs as proof of anything really.

He bought United for his son as a hobby too.

[D'Jaffo]

6 hours ago, TxRover said:

While the commitment seems there off the field, at least to develop a solid Championship facility, I’m not sure it’s truly focused upon a Premiership position. As others have noted, teams that move up, often drop back down after a bit with financial concerns. For instance, the Accies have been up in ‘08, down in ‘11, back up in ‘14 and down in ‘21…and while I’ll grant the ‘17 phishing incident didn’t help their situation, it’s obvious the years of big spending while floating low in the Premiership have taken their toll as they threaten a Brechin. Similar stories can be found with Dundee, Dundee United, etc, all existing as yo-yos whose financial conditions seem, well, marginal. The top level is set up to be very difficult to secure a foothold in, and it just feels that Ayr’s leadership decided not to press too hard in the January window. Feel free to tell me I’m full of it, but it just seems that way.

Communication with the fans and development of youth are great things, but not indicative (by themselves) of a push to the top level, but more of proper business development and community relations. I got the impression that Ayr wasn’t exactly all in in the window, if that’s wrong, please elucidate.

The club made it clear in the summer that whilst it would be very easy to give Bullen a massive budget to go and win the league, it wasn’t what they wanted to do as it leads to more issues down the line. There was a set budget in the summer and the money was spent rebuilding after last years shambles. That’s why we did so little in January. We pushed the boat out to get Mullin permanently and then managed to get McAlear and Maguire in. It wasn’t a bad window on paper and there was an attempt made to at least keep us as strong as we were prior to January but realistically we couldn’t replace Logan Chalmers. 
 

None of that is indicative of the club not wanting to go up or a lack of commitment from the ownership. It just shows that we aren’t going to spend daft money chasing promotion and will happily build slowly over a few years to get it right. 

[RandomGuy.]

1 hour ago, Crawford said:

He bought United for his son as a hobby too.

Aye been clear since the start it would end in disaster.

[johnnydun]

18 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Aye been clear since the start it would end in disaster.

I, for one, am enjoying that ride.

[VincentGuerin]

On 23/03/2023 at 16:19, Sortmeout said:

Totally agree. I would argue that games for St Johnstone, Livingston and to a lesser extent St Mirren are already close to being “meaningless” but it won’t stop their fans from turning up every week or being as happy/annoyed depending on whether they’ve won or lost.

 

ETA - I’ve never heard someone going “ah this game is only to find out who finishes 5th and who finishes 6th I’m not bothered about it”.

Livingston and St Mirren are 1 and 2 points off a European place as things stand, and three of Livi's next four are against sides in the bottom half.

St Johnstone are arguably the only side out of twelve in the top flight with not much riding on their games from here on in. That's a pretty good set-up. A third of the teams in the division could quite realistically end up either in Europe or the bottom six.

I get that four times a year isn't ideal, but I disagree that it's not important to create competition. A bigger league would stretch the division given the financial differences between clubs in Scotland. We don't have a tv deal to make it competitive like they do in England, and we'd end up with a more stretched division with less movement over a season and a lot of boredom towards the end.

And, as I've mentioned on here before, the price of season tickets would need to come down, costing the clubs more money. How do Hearts' ST prices change when we remove a derby, a game each against the OF, a game against Aberdeen, and replace them with ICT, Raith Rovers, Morton, and Ayr United?

The larger league is one of these things that gets a very sympathetic hearing, but when you scratch the surface of it I'm not sure it would really improve our lot at all.

Would anyone be turning up to 11th v 8th in April thinking 'at least it's Ayr we're playing today and not St Mirren again, this is great!'?

Edited March 25, 2023 by VincentGuerin

[SmokeyJoe]

Where would would QP play if they got promoted surely not lesser hampden? What’s going to be max capacity when actually ready? 
 

all for queens going up btw just can’t see the capacity being great. 

Edited March 25, 2023 by SmokeyJoe

[Girth]

3 hours ago, johnnydun said:

I, for one, am enjoying that ride.

[Cptn Hooch]

On 23/03/2023 at 16:19, Sortmeout said:

Totally agree. I would argue that games for St Johnstone, Livingston and to a lesser extent St Mirren are already close to being “meaningless”

Is that the same Livingston who are AHEAD of St Mirren and still within touching distance of European qualification?

[Girth]

3 hours ago, SmokeyJoe said:

Where would would QP play if they got promoted surely not lesser hampden? What’s going to be max capacity when actually ready? 
 

all for queens going up btw just can’t see the capacity being great. 

[TxRover]

6 hours ago, D'Jaffo said:

The club made it clear in the summer that whilst it would be very easy to give Bullen a massive budget to go and win the league, it wasn’t what they wanted to do as it leads to more issues down the line. There was a set budget in the summer and the money was spent rebuilding after last years shambles. That’s why we did so little in January. We pushed the boat out to get Mullin permanently and then managed to get McAlear and Maguire in. It wasn’t a bad window on paper and there was an attempt made to at least keep us as strong as we were prior to January but realistically we couldn’t replace Logan Chalmers. 
 

None of that is indicative of the club not wanting to go up or a lack of commitment from the ownership. It just shows that we aren’t going to spend daft money chasing promotion and will happily build slowly over a few years to get it right. 

So it’s right answer for complex wrong reasons. It would be bad for Ayr to be promoted this year, simply because the proper base hasn’t yet been established to be able to properly, and financially prudently, compete to remain within the Premiership. OK, that makes the moves this year more sensible, rather than a seeming recoiling from a real push. I’m actually hopeful that Raith can emulate that idea and establish themselves properly, if we could clear up the ownership woes.

[Mon eh Ton]

24 minutes ago, TxRover said:

So it’s right answer for complex wrong reasons. It would be bad for Ayr to be promoted this year, simply because the proper base hasn’t yet been established to be able to properly, and financially prudently, compete to remain within the Premiership.

I don't think there's a bad time to get promoted out of the championship. I imagine it's easier to establish yourself, whatever that means, after a year of premiership gate + TV money and, even in the worst case, relegation prize money that's double what you get for winning the championship.