McGhee: SPL heading towards LoI level

[sligoman]

The Clydesdale Bank Premier League is in danger of sinking to the level of the League of Ireland, according to Aberdeen boss Mark McGhee.

McGhee believes the Scottish top flight bore comparison with its English counterpart prior to the formation of the Barclays Premier League.

But he insists the SPL is now on a par with the Coca-Cola Championship and warned it would continue to fall further behind the English leagues if something was not done to arrest the slide.

More. (http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2009/1114/mcgheem.html)

[KianD]

He said "the Irish league" - does he actually mean us or the Nordies?

[sonofstan]

By 'heading towards' he means 'is at'

(assumng he means the LoI and not the IL)

[galwayjames]

I think we're at the same level as the SPL clubs (bar Rangers and Celtic obviously) already.

This year:

: Pats went further in Europe than Motherwell this year

: Made it to the same round as Hearts

: They knocked out a Russian team in the same round as Aberdeen were hammered 8-1 by a Czech Republic side who were thrashed by Everton in the next round

And Pats are nowhere near our best team in the league.

: Falkirk were knocked out by a team from Liechtenstein in the same round that both Pats and Derry qualified.

Last year:

: While Rangers were knocked out by a Lithuanian side who were knocked out in the next round by Aalborg, Drogheda were a leg (Adam Hughes' leg!) away from knocking out Dynamo Kiev, who went on to qualify for the group stages of the Champions League and made the UEFA Cup Semi Final in the same year.

: St Pats were unlucky to be knocked out in the UEFA Cup by Hertha Berlin, in the same round Nancy comfortably knocked out Motherwell.

And that's without even mentioning Derry's 5-1 hammering of Gretna in Scotland, or Bohs knocking out Aberdeen in the UEFA Cup in 2000..

The only things that separates us are the infrastructure, facilities and the Irish media's lack of interest.

[superfrank]

He said "the Irish league" - does he actually mean us or the Nordies?
That's what I was thinking too.

And that's without even mentioning Derry's 5-1 hammering of Gretna in Scotland
In fairness, Gretna were muck in their one season in the SPL.

Paddy McCourt and Niall McGinn are both getting a good run at Celtic at the mo and, afaik, have been praised for their performances. However, I don't know if they've improved greatly in their time over there (haven't seen enough of them.

[Dillonman]

Its been there for several years now, terrible league and some terrible teams! Rangers and Celtic should be pushing to get into our league...all their debts would be irradicated and yet still not gety punished!;)

[redarmyfaction]

I think we're at the same level as the SPL clubs (bar Rangers and Celtic obviously) already.

This year:

: Pats went further in Europe than Motherwell this year

: Made it to the same round as Hearts

: They knocked out a Russian team in the same round as Aberdeen were hammered 8-1 by a Czech Republic side who were thrashed by Everton in the next round

And Pats are nowhere near our best team in the league.

: Falkirk were knocked out by a team from Liechtenstein in the same round that both Pats and Derry qualified.

Last year:

: While Rangers were knocked out by a Lithuanian side who were knocked out in the next round by Aalborg, Drogheda were a leg (Adam Hughes' leg!) away from knocking out Dynamo Kiev, who went on to qualify for the group stages of the Champions League and made the UEFA Cup Semi Final in the same year.

: St Pats were unlucky to be knocked out in the UEFA Cup by Hertha Berlin, in the same round Nancy comfortably knocked out Motherwell.

And that's without even mentioning Derry's 5-1 hammering of Gretna in Scotland, or Bohs knocking out Aberdeen in the UEFA Cup in 2000..

The only things that separates us are the infrastructure, facilities and the Irish media's lack of interest.

One hell of a post James.

[Mark]

saw that earlier and i think he means the northern ireland league?

[galwayjames]

saw that earlier and i think he means the northern ireland league?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/a/aberdeen/8360394.stm

According to this he definitely meant the League of Ireland.

[A face]

I think we're at the same level as the SPL clubs (bar Rangers and Celtic obviously) already.

This year:

: Pats went further in Europe than Motherwell this year

: Made it to the same round as Hearts

: They knocked out a Russian team in the same round as Aberdeen were hammered 8-1 by a Czech Republic side who were thrashed by Everton in the next round

And Pats are nowhere near our best team in the league.

: Falkirk were knocked out by a team from Liechtenstein in the same round that both Pats and Derry qualified.

Last year:

: While Rangers were knocked out by a Lithuanian side who were knocked out in the next round by Aalborg, Drogheda were a leg (Adam Hughes' leg!) away from knocking out Dynamo Kiev, who went on to qualify for the group stages of the Champions League and made the UEFA Cup Semi Final in the same year.

: St Pats were unlucky to be knocked out in the UEFA Cup by Hertha Berlin, in the same round Nancy comfortably knocked out Motherwell.

And that's without even mentioning Derry's 5-1 hammering of Gretna in Scotland, or Bohs knocking out Aberdeen in the UEFA Cup in 2000..

The only things that separates us are the infrastructure, facilities and the Irish media's lack of interest.

If that is factually correct then it makes good reading. I think we all know that we were the same standard already but its just no Irish paper will ever tell you that.

[Éimear]

What about a Scotland-Ireland league if Celtic & Rangers move to the Premier League.

A 16 team Premier consisting of:

8 teams from Scotland:

Hibernian
Dundee Utd
Hearts
Aberdeen
Motherwell
Kilmarnock
Falkirk
St Mirren

6 teams from the Republic of Ireland:

Bohemians
Cork City
Sligo Rovers
Shamrock Rovers
Galway United
Dundalk

2 teams from Northern Ireland:

Glentoran
Linfield

It's a possibility if the Old Firm move to England.

[Mark]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/a/aberdeen/8360394.stm

According to this he definitely meant the League of Ireland.

Yes, sorry. just read that link. Thanks.

[Riddickcule]

Surely he means the irish league no? (NI)

I mean he did say those exact words, which means the north

Bohs, Rovers, Cork could take on hibs, hearts, falkirk any day imo

[TheBoss]

I do not see much difference in the transfers, apart from Steven Fletcher's way overpriced £3m

http://www.skysports.com/football/transfers/0,20367,11780,00.html

[Nedser]

I agree the SPL is one of the least interesting leagues on the planet, and the standard really does appear to be deteriorating.

However, there is a lot of delusion on here about the standard of the LOI. If you accept the logic in the post from James, thenby the same token Pats are better than Bohs, since Pats got further in Europe. And this year there were 2 teams from the first division in the FAI Cup semis, plus one in the final, so does that mean there's no difference between the two LOI divisions? Championship teams regularly beat Premiership teams in the FA Cup ..... see where I'm going here?

I just can't see how LOI clubs who play in front of 2-3,000 people a week (or less) can expect to be on the same level as clubs such as Hearts and Hibs who get 15,000+. I don't know how much a ticket to an SPL game costs, but I would guess it's a fair bit more than an average LOI ticket, plus the SPL clubs get much more TV money, bigger sponsorship etc, so I wouldn't be surprised if their budgets were 10 times what the biggest LOI clubs have to work with.

[jebus]

The only things that separates us are the infrastructure, facilities and the Irish media's lack of interest.

Those are fairly massive things to put to one side though, particularly the facilities

[dcfcsteve]

Those are fairly massive things to put to one side though, particularly the facilities

And he neglected to mention the biggest thing that separates us - attendances.

I suspect this is just another screw-up from RTE.

McGhee mentions the 'Irish League' in his interview - and whilst many people use that term to mean any/either league on the island of Ireland, I rememebr this story being on Sky or BBC during the week, and he definitely appeared to be talking about the North when he referred to attendnaces and there being just two decent-sized clubs.

Also - he'd be ill-judged to suggest the LOI was some lowly level the SPL was in danger of falling to, given the relative Euro results of-late. Euro results aren't clear indicators of much, but as shown in a previous post they are still one level at which his comparison can be made to look foolish.

Mod edit - there's a multi-quote button!

[Ciaran W]

And dont forget that shamrock rovers 2nd string team beat hibs 1-0 in a friendly in july

[Buller]

And dont forget that shamrock rovers 2nd string team beat hibs 1-0 in a friendly in july

Yeah actually! That was pretty much our A-championship team playing Hibs fullteam. While it was pre-season, they still should have hammered them if they were any use!

Outside Ranger and Celtic, even though they do get bigger crowds, have better facilities,... you cant say there's the same gap in terms of quality of football between the two leagues.

[Riddickcule]

And he neglected to mention the biggest thing that separates us - attendances.
Yeah, well that would be very much linked to facilities

[citybone]

Yeah actually! That was pretty much our A-championship team playing Hibs fullteam. While it was pre-season, they still should have hammered them if they were any use!

Outside Ranger and Celtic, even though they do get bigger crowds, have better facilities,... you cant say there's the same gap in terms of quality of football between the two leagues.

Cork City were 3-0 up against Hibs in 2005 with fringe players eg. 5 first team players made 8 subs weakening the team further where were finished 3-3 but we won on Penalties. But we have gone backwards since then

[dcfcsteve]

Yeah, well that would be very much linked to facilities

I considered that when I posted, but chose to do so anyway. On the basis that they're all inter-linked.

Attendances may be linked to facilities, but there's a bigger causal link between facilities and atendances in-reverse, for example.

[Nedser]

Yeah actually! That was pretty much our A-championship team playing Hibs fullteam. While it was pre-season, they still should have hammered them if they were any use!

Outside Ranger and Celtic, even though they do get bigger crowds, have better facilities,... you cant say there's the same gap in terms of quality of football between the two leagues.

This is all so selective. You could find plenty of example of LOI teams performing poorly against LSL teams in pre season friendlies, but no one is saying that means the LSL is as good as the LOI Premier.

I just had a look at the Hibs and Hearts squads on Wikipedia out if interest. To be honest, I don't know much about most of their players, but that really doesn't mean anything. I'm only familiar with most LOI players because I follow an LOI club, it's not as if any of them are household names. One thing did strike me though - Hibs have Liam Miller and Anthony Stokes, both of whom are a cut above anyone in the LOI IMO. If that's an indication of the type of players that Hibs have in their squad, then sorry, but they're on a completely different level to the LOI (which is what you would expect, given they have a much bigger budget).

For those who just dismiss the gap in attendances as if it's trivial - here's a question: how much difference would it make to the standard in the LOI if the biggest clubs had attendances like Hibs and Hearts (say 12-15,000) and the smallest clubs had attendances like say Hamilton (say 3-4,000)?

I think it would completely transform the LOI and the standard would increase hugely. If you agree with that, then surely you have to agree that clubs who already have those sorts of attendances are likely to be a level above what the LOI is at currently? If you don't agree that increasing attendances to SPL levels (excl Old Firm) would hugely improve the LOI, then I'd love to hear why.

[Acornvilla]

because i love the LOI! which in my mind makes it a better league than the SPL and none of your fancy rational thinking will change my mind!:p
On a serious note i think the reason the irish clubs preform more admirably is that the euro matches mean much more to the players, the fans and the club than the games do to the scots

[Mayo Red]

Wasn't Mark McGhee linked with the Bohs job a few years ago if I'm not mistaken?

[peadar1987]

I've been past Easter Road and Tynecastle a couple of times since moving over here, although I haven't yet been to a game (other sporting commitments! Someone should really tell the Scots about the wonders of Friday night football!).

There really is no comparison in terms of facilities. When you compare this:
http://www.stadiumdb.com/images/stadiums/europe/scotland/edinburgh/tynecastle-stadium.jpg

To this:
http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/9233/200709282007october0066wq9.jpg
And Dalymount is one of the better grounds in the league.

Edinburgh is a city less than half the size of Dublin, yet it attracts about 30 000 people to support its two teams every week. Dublin has 6 teams, we'd be lucky to get 10 000 between them.

[gspain]

If that is factually correct then it makes good reading. I think we all know that we were the same standard already but its just no Irish paper will ever tell you that.

Where is the evidence that they are anywhere near the same standard excl Rangers and Celtic?

Thew post and the facts imply the LoI is at a higher level.

Anybody done the UEFA coefficient stats excl Celtic and Rangers?

I trust he means Irish League level.

Derry's defeat of Gretna is a record home defeat for a Scottish side in Europe btw.

[KianD]

Wasn't Mark McGhee linked with the Bohs job a few years ago if I'm not mistaken?

After he'd left Brighton for not being very good (at the time) and before he went to Motherwell, I believe...

[Steve Bruce]

Scottish teams have done tours of Northern Ireland in recent years and the IL teams have got the better of scottish sides most of the time.

Hearts came third in the league came to play Ballymena, got beat by Ballymena, then came to play the blues and it was a very one sided 1 nill win for Linfield and they had their full team out.

The standard of the SPL is falling no doubt, but it is still a higher standard than the LOI or IL. It's easy for teams in this country to pick up their games for one or two games against a much more fancied team, than for them to come over here and raise their games against us.

People are really dillusional to think that the LOI are on par with the SPL just yet. 1st division would be more like it.

[DaveyCakes]

Anybody done the UEFA coefficient stats excl Celtic and Rangers?



Excluding Celtic and Rangers, Scotland's UEFA coefficients for the past 5 seasons are 1.000, 0.000, 3.250, 1.500, and 1.000. A grand total of 6.750

The LOI total in that time is 9.541

[pineapple stu]

It helps us starting in an earlier round though.

Also, let's see what the coefficient is when we're not racking up E1m annual losses by the barrel-load.

[Acornvilla]

Excluding Celtic and Rangers, Scotland's UEFA coefficients for the past 5 seasons are 1.000, 0.000, 3.250, 1.500, and 1.000. A grand total of 6.750

The LOI total in that time is 9.541
you sir have too much time on your hands but are a legand nonetheless :)

[Riddickcule]

you sir have too much time on your hands but are a legand nonetheless :)
+ 1 Legend indeed

[Nedser]

Excluding Celtic and Rangers, Scotland's UEFA coefficients for the past 5 seasons are 1.000, 0.000, 3.250, 1.500, and 1.000. A grand total of 6.750

The LOI total in that time is 9.541

Do you not see the blatantly obvious problem with this? Excl Celtic and Rangers, Scotland only gets 2 Euro places, one of which in recent years has generally gone to the runners up in the Scottish Cup, who have more often than not been minnows (not even SPL sides in a few cases, eg Gretna, Dunfermline). And excl Celtic and Rangers, Scotland effectively has no teams in the CL, which is where the most UEFA coefficient points are to be won. What an utterly meaningless set of stats.




Derry's defeat of Gretna is a record home defeat for a Scottish side in Europe btw.

Gretna weren't an SPL club at the time. In fact, they'd just been promoted from the 2nd division to the 1st if I recall correctly. What relevance does that game have to this thread?


Excluding Celtic and Rangers, Scotland's UEFA coefficients for the past 5 seasons are 1.000, 0.000, 3.250, 1.500, and 1.000. A grand total of 6.750

The LOI total in that time is 9.541

Ok, I also had a bit of time on my hands tonight to look into this a bit more. It seems Scotland had extra teams in Europe this year, so what I said about only 2 non Old Firm teams qualifying is no longer true, but it was true for the previous 4 years.

In summary over the past 5 years:
- Number of non Old Firm SPL entrants in Europe: 8
- Number of LOI entrants in Europe: 15

- Number of non Old Firm SPL entrants in CL: 1
- Number of LOI entrants in CL: 5

- Furthest a non Old Firm SPL team has got in CL: 3rd qualifying round (Hearts in 2006/2007)
- Furthest an LOI team has got in CL: 2nd qualifying round (Shelbourne in 2005/2006, Cork in 2006/2007, Drogheda in 2008/2009, Bohs in 2009/2010)

- Furthest a non Old Firm SPL team got in UEFA Cup: Last 32 (knockout stages - Aberdeen in 2007/2008)
- Furthest an LOI team got in UEFA Cup: First Round (Cork in 2005/2006, Derry in 2006/2007, Pats in 2008/2009)

- Furthest a non Old Firm SPL team has got in Europa League: Play-off round (Hearts in 2009/2010)
- Furthest an LOI team has got in Europa League: Play-off round (Pats in 2009/2010)

Overall, even though the LOI had almost twice as many entrants overall and 5 times as many entrants in the CL, they have failed to match the achievements of the non Old Firm SPL clubs. I hadn't realised how far Aberdeen went a couple of years ago (I think GalwayJames must have accidentally forgotten to include that in his original post). That's beyond the wildest dreams of any LOI club. And by the way, they were the only non Old Firm SPL club in Europe that year.

If the non Old Firm SPL clubs had 3 teams in Europe every year for the past 5 years, including 1 in the CL qualifiers every year, I think it's safe to assume their coefficient would have been a lot higher (that's not even considering the fact that one of them may even have made the group stages).

As someone else pointed out, most of the LOI coefficient points have been won in early qualifying rounds, which the likes of Hearts and Aberdeen don't compete in. If LOI clubs were going straight into the 1st round proper of the UEFA Cup, then it would wipe out all of their victories in the UEFA Cup over that period. Our coefficient wouldn't look too good then.

Can we please drop the delusion now?

Mod edit - there's a multi-post function :)

[Doomofman]

Outside of everything else.. The Scottish league is one of the worst to watch, can't really say why. But I'd just rather watch a UCD game than a Scottish game...