We are now at the stage where the 6th highest ranked league in European football "isn't a great standard".
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
I might even get a game there myself ! (wink)Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954
Yes, of course. There are five higher ranked leagues. There are 96 clubs in those leagues. If each of those clubs has a core squad of 23 players, that's 2200 players playing in more highly ranked leagues.
That's before you factor in the difference in standards within smaller leagues like the Eredivisie, where you have a small group of teams that are closer to being on a par with the bigger leagues, and are the clubs that keep the leagues coefficient up, while other clubs in the same division are a much lower standard.
Meanwhile we're trying to put together a squad that can hold it's own against the best countries in Europe and beat the mid ranked countries so that we can get back to qualifying for things again. To do that we need to be picking from the top five leagues in the main. Parrott isn't playing in any of them, other than a couple of token sub appearances for Spurs he never has. Hopefully he can get there, but right now he isn't.
Not all the, teams /players, in one league would automatically fall in to the positions that you have posted !
Not even in the slightest. Parrott's a decent squad option but he's done literally nothing to date that suggests he should be our go to centre forward. Hopefully he gets there but scoring against Heerenveen and Zwolle week in week out doesn't automatically make him a top striker - one of the other leading strikers in that league this season flopped at Hibs last year. What it does do is potentially open up a move for him to a bigger team or league and we'll see how he goes if he gets that move this summer or next. But we need to stop building up relatively minor continental European leagues into something more than they are.
Right now Evan Ferguson at 75% is still comfortably ahead of Troy for the centre forward spot. Hopefully he can get there in time, but for now he either plays in a support forward role for us, plays as a sub, or doesn't play at all.
Funny how you don't mention his goals against Ajax or even Roma... but I suppose that doesn't fit the narrative
Its really not that complicated!!!
Can we agree it's a good league, but not a great league Bill?
(I can't agree that the second top scorer in a league renowned for producing decent young players - albeit not with a 100% success rate - has done "literally nothing to date [to] suggest he should be our go to centre forward". It's not as if the other options are pulling up sticks either. There's not a massive amount between our options at the moment.)
I would take your point generally, but would also make one major qualification.
There is a big drop-off between the top four leagues (England UEFA Co-efficient: 106.624), Italy (92.918), Spain (88.025), Germany (83.081) and the fifth (France 67.379).
Fair dues, Netherlands (64.150) aren't too far behind France, but even there there is a further qualification. Namely that those UEFA ratings are based on the performances of each country's teams which have qualified for Europe, with all entrants averaged out. And while the top four each have 7 or 8 entrants, the Netherlands only having 6 means that their league's depth isn't so tested, points-wise, as the bigger leagues. Which only reflects further what we all knew already, namely that once you get past Ajax, Feyenoord and PSV, there is a much greater drop-off in quality than you see between the top teams and the rest in the top four leagues. This top-heavy variability in quality, which understandably reflects respective differences in population, is also to be seen eg in Portugal and Belgium, reaching its culmination in Scotland.
Where does this leave TP? It seems to me that after falling away somewhat from the immense potential he originally showed at Spurs, he's now working his way back nicely at AZ, so that if he continues down this path, he's got to be a contender for the top three Dutch teams.
Whether he could go beyond that to a big team in a big league, must be debateable, since he might still reasonably need a season or two to adjust further and you simply don't get that at that level.
All that said, from where I sit as a Spurs fan who has kept an eye on his career even since he left us, he's surely good enough for regular starts for a middling international team like ROI - I'd have him like a shot for NI, were he one of ours!
No they're encouraging, that's what we want. But, similar to Idah, he's not playing that level of opposition week in week out. The Eredivisie is a good place for showcasing potential talent and hopefully he can get the move to a bigger league before too long. If he moves to a mid table Serie A team or somewhere like that and scores regularly there, that obviously changes everything. But right now, he's still a decent poacher at a lower level and unless Ferguson has an absolutely disastrous start at West Ham he'll still be the red hot favourite to start against Bulgaria.
Ferguson at his best has the potential to be our best ever striker, even better than Robbie in my opinion but he has a lot to do to show that right now. I just find it silly the constant need to denegrate other leagues when other countries who beat us on a regular basis are happy to pick players from these so called lesser leagues.
Its really not that complicated!!!
But the Dutch don't even pick many players from that division - and it's their own league. Outside of Ajax and PSV it's just the occasional squad player that gets in for them, no starters that I'm aware of. And I'm not saying he shouldn't be making our squad - he's absolutely there on merit. I just don't see the justification for starting him at centre forward.
Brian Brobbey from Ajax is in the Dutch squad. Funnily enough he's been linked with Spurs recently... but Parrott has a far better record than him
Its really not that complicated!!!
The UEFA Club coefficient ranks AZ the 40th best club in Europe - https://kassiesa.net/uefa/data/method5/trank2025.html
Using Eirambler's standard of 23 players per squad, that puts 920 players ahead of AZ's squad.
We're not Holland though.
I'd have no qualms with Parrott starting against Bulgaria tbh. Or Ferguson or Cannon. Beggars can't be choosers.
Sorry for interrupting.
Scores a penalty v Galatasaray.
Doesn't count... Galatasary play in a league even lesser than Holland and it was only a pen
Its really not that complicated!!!
I'd sub him on in the second leg against Bulgaria if it was going to pens!
Him, Cannon and Idah off the bench to take penalties, and maybe Mark Travers to go in goal. We'd have our first shootout win in years.
If that's what we've been working off! Stuttgart are 104th on that list? ( 5th in the league)
Aston Villa 54th
Makes no sense right?
Personally I think he would be a good partner for Ferguson on the Irish team. He has the ability to link up play and we haven't got many forwards who have that in their locker. He is just 23 and will get better.
Might need a bit more pace from the front 2. I really wish Michael Obafemi would get his **** together. Ditto Aaron Connolly, not meaning to sound harsh re addiction issues. Our pacey lads are Idah and Cannon until Obafemi reverts to his old self.
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