Once again, you're not reading my post. I explicitly called out that Dundalk's three 2020 wins would not have been there in previous years, and so needed to be considered in the comparison I made. And I did this for the exact same reason as I've said can't compare absolute coefficients like you're doing.
Well you're the one comparing absolute coefficients, not me. All I'm showing is why you can't really do that. If you want to further undermine your own argument, fire ahead.
No, because that wasn't what I was comparing, and I was very clear about what my comparison was (post 452). Is a comparison of results against leagues outside the current bottom ten countries subjective? Of course. Does that make it wrong? I don't see how. You certainly haven't shown how.
But I was clearly comparing the periods 2003-2011 v 2012-2020 (2003-11 being the LoI's peak period). Another indication that you're not reading my posts. So yet again, can I ask you to go back and read my posts before replying? It might stop you asking more questions which I've already answered.
But the gas thing is you then produce stats which actually back my point up! As a quick summary (and without checking if they're correct; I'll assume they are) -
Top 20 record (W-L) gone from 2-15 in the 00s to 0-16 in the 10s.
Top 30 record gone from 7-24 to 6-32 (a noticeable drop; 22% success down to 15%)
30-39 record gone from 9-0 to 7-15 (a significant drop)
You then compare top-30 scalps in the 00s with "notable scalps" in the 10s, which includes a win against the 34th-ranked league, Bosnia. Those comparisons aren't valid.
So are you honestly going to quote those stats at me and argue against my point that "It's hard not to think that results like this really put the lie to those who say the league is steadily improving"?
What scalps were available in the last five years? Celje, Riteriai, Fehervar, Niederkorn, Norrköping, Dinamo Minsk, AIK - all mid-20s or lower, or Swedish (we used to have a great record against Swedisk clubs). Rosenborg (twice) and Molde (Rovers did beat Brann after all). I could add in Qarabag and Slovan (twice), but they're top teams from a middling league and it'd probably be unfair to expect much from them; they're stronger than their moderate national rating. Still, there's plenty of options there.
Edit - while I think of it, I reckon going from 3 teams to 4 helped our coefficient, not hindered it as you claim. The LoI has always been a flat league in terms of standard - eight different winners in ten seasons from 2005 to 2014 suggests that. Compare that to other leagues where, say, Skonto Riga (well, RIP), BATE Borisov, Lincoln Red Impds, Dinamo Zagreb, etc, win almost every year. The gap from first to fourth in those leagues is going to be bigger than in the LoI, so that should actually hinder their coefficient slightly, not ours. Similar to how Scotland's coefficient would be reduced if they added another team (or in fact was reduced while Rangers were in the lower tiers)