It's disappointing that half the teams in Europe are having bad seasons. Rovers and Dundalk probably performed roughly as expected and to be fair pats probably did too and could probably count themselves unlucky not to at least get a penalty but the inconsistency of our league, driven by the one season contracts, means that the teams that have qualified can be completely different beasts by the time Europe actually comes. If you look at the tables now I'd put money on Derry and Bohs doing better than Cork and Pats did if they were in Europe but last season neither of them were great and if they do qualify this season who knows what they'll be like next season?
The league needs to move away from season long deals to get some consistency in it. The lack of continuity gives us great story lines with teams flying up or dropping down in no time at all but in terms of actually improving the league it'd be far better to have consistency. It's no surprise that the two best teams in the league are the ones with very little turn over of players and that have players with security in their contracts.
It's interesting how the European question brings out reasoned debate on this forum, in stark contrast to the league squabblings. Long may it continue
Well that's hardly that surprising considering they've played three times as many games and against easier teams...Originally Posted by swinfordfc
I don't know how many of you follow Irish League football and are on the irish league forums, but we are having constant debates on Summer football and how it affects European results.
Does anyone care to give me their viewpoints on whether it would be worthwhile for the Irish League to move towards a May to February season?
The Hallion Battalion Molests football.:D
Take Dundalk & Rovers out and the comparison also is clearer
2 loses *at home* one of which was against unseeded opposition
versus 2 wins one at home and one away. Sure next week things might change and Scotland might also have 2 clubs eliminated... but their win(s) is also better for the coefficient...?
0-2 is clearly worse than only winning cos of a last minute goal. One team took their chances and another didnt.
Last edited by sparky12345678; 12/07/2019 at 4:28 PM.
We probably wouldn't have beaten Dudelange had we not been mid-season.
Would starting in May give the same edge as starting in March? Probably not, especially for a team with a few transfers, but it would surely be a big improvement.
But there's more to football than just Europe, and the way summer soccer has been implemented here was one of the most damagingly short-sighted decisions the FAI have ever made I think. Different seasons for senior football/everyone else has to be a no-no.
Well that's just arguing that the SPL is better than the LoI. Of course it is.
Has the SPL's European results improved in recent years ago that we should try learn from it? That was your question, and I don't think you've proven your case.
Being parachuted in is neither here nor there really. We performed pretty much as we've been performing all season. No reason to expect anything else just because it was a European game. Decent enough effort for the first half hour, but we never looked like scoring (though having said that it looked like a peno on Shaw to me.) They could have had a couple more too. Disappointing, but really I didn't expect much more. Sneaking a nil nil was the height of our prospects last night.
Out for a spell, got neglected, lay on the bench unselected.
Biggest problem with a May to February season for me would be it falls outside European transfer windows. The February to November season the LOI has more or less coincides with January and July-August in England and the rest of Europe. If you were to have a May to February season, where would you put the windows?
The eir commentators pronunciation of Norrkoping ranged between north coping,not copingto nor kopinge and a few times he went "north shopping"
or maybe it was just me and my bad ears picking that up?
The Swedes pronounce the k in Norrkoping like our sh so it's something like Nurrshupping.The eir commentators pronunciation of Norrkoping ranged between north coping,not coping
or maybe it was just me and my bad ears picking that up?
Is it really that the LOI has gone backwards in recent years (i.e. leaving aside the crazy Celtic Tiger boom and bust years) ? Or is it more that other leagues have progressed at a faster pace than us ?
Discuss.
I think the LoI has gone backwards from the crazy bubble years, which we'd like to think of as normal, but which weren't of course. I think it's gone backwards in the past, say, 5 years as well.
Has it gone backwards from, say, the 90s? In terms of money, probably yes. In terms of player prep, etc, then no. Would a top LoI team of today beat a top LoI team from the 90s? Probably would - again, strength and conditioning, etc, has improved a lot since then.
But certainly there is greater potential for the league if it had, for example, better prize money and other supports. So at the moment, I would certainly argue that the league is not fulfilling its potential by a long shot.
The standard of the league has fallen badly the past few seasons.
The gap between the top teams and the rest has certainly grown as the European money has increased.
This means the level of competiveness within the league has dropped as the disparity in resources and budget is magnified. It is possible that the standard at the top may have actually increased while the overall standard has fallen. I don't know if this can be measured in any meaningful way.
Every season for as long as I can recall fans of clubs who are not successful lament that the league is "poorer". A quick look at the Cork forum comments this year will illustrate this point well
Objectivity in this topic is very difficult
Europe has to be the yard stick so we will know where we stand next week with Rovers & Dundalk the die is cast for ourselves & Cork.
It's obviously nearly impossible to compare standards from season to season but my two cents on it would be that the lack of top strikers in the league is seriously hampering the league because as Dundalk for example showed you can play all the great football you want if you can't stick the ball in the net in Europe the results won't look good. As for the actual quality I'd say the way teams are looking to play is a lot better but the players maybe just haven't fully come through yet so some teams are having to use square pegs in round holes for the time being and it shows but the underage teams at most clubs from what I've seen are mostly playing good football so hopefully as they come through that'll improve. I also can't stress enough how much I think the single season contracts affect the league and harm the coefficient. It leads to single season bubbles of quality at clubs that pop when the owners realise the money won't come through for at least another year after they qualify, so by the time Europe comes they're a shell of the team that qualified and another team in the league now has that quality but won't play in Europe with it and the cycle continues. This is all ignoring the fact there's a good chance if anyone impresses in a season they'll likely be off to one of the bigger clubs or abroad. The league should definitely look at having some registration rules in place to try encouraging continuity in squads which I think would help the leagues quality.
Totally agree about the one year deals.
I think this is a regular comment from fans of clubs who are having modest seasons, I'd prefer to hold my judgement until the second legs, I still think both Dundalk and Rovers will get through and if so 2/4 is not too bad.
Without a doubt the needle is gone with the rivalry with Dundalk given Cork's incredible and rapid decline, Rovers have challenged well and Bohs are on target for a Euro spot, Derry are also decent this year, so that's prob the top 4. Take away decent Cork sides in the past, I'm not sure that strikes of a standard that has dropped too much.
Europe is quite rightly a good barometer of how things are going, Dundalk didn't play well the other night, one more average performance and they will be out, but I think we'll go through, we will score over there.
If only one go through next week* (or worse none) I'll certainly agree things are going backwards.
* Dlk have a backdoor this year, in the event of going out to Riga, its into EL r2, if we get past Riga its ELr3 if (when) we lose CL r2 to Qurabag (most likely opponents).
#DundalkFC - First Irish club to win an away game in Europe (1963), first Irish club to win points in a group stage in Europe (2016).
Then I think of Git Forresters 3 year deal and.......
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