2023 Season, Arrivals and Departures

[CSAD]

not a big enough sample size of loi vs first team spl sides to come to any meaningful conclusion. i mean cork city beat hacken in 2016 over 2 legs, nobody has ever said loi is better than sweden premier division after that result... maybe look at all those good/very good loi players who havent made it over there.its either every club scouting poorly or just that players arent good enough...

Or you could look at Scottish sides results in Europe over the years. It shows like many have said that it’s a league that’s hugely dependent on Celtic & Rangers delivering and you’ll find those in Ireland who speak up for the SPL when you dig through their social media are probably Celtic fans.

By that you mean David McMillian. But yeah always look at what makes the Scottish side looked on more favorably. We should rename the forum the Tartan Army forum as posters here seem better supporters of Scotland than the actual Tartan Army forum are.

[Jd2793]

Or you could look at Scottish sides results in Europe over the years. It shows like many have said that it’s a league that’s hugely dependent on Celtic & Rangers delivering and you’ll find those in Ireland who speak up for the SPL when you dig through their social media are probably Celtic fans.

By that you mean David McMillian. But yeah always look at what makes the Scottish side looked on more favorably. We should rename the forum the Tartan Army forum as posters here seem better supporters of Scotland than the actual Tartan Army forum are.

mcmillan, mahon , mceneff , tierney (so far, v young) , boyle. its hardly controversial to be saying SPL is better infairness. we still had "part time" teams in PD this season ffs. mccarthy mcgreath mcloughlin and scales could be deemed ones who were good enough outside the big 2. its not exactly a ringing endorsement of the league if half of the players arent hitting the ground running over there. people dont realise how far behind this league is to something like spl/l1. its a bit mad considering how many of the leagues defenders go to games!

[CSAD]

mcmillan, mahon , mceneff , tierney (so far, v young) , boyle. its hardly controversial to be saying SPL is better infairness. we still had "part time" teams in PD this season ffs. mccarthy mcgreath mcloughlin and scales could be deemed ones who were good enough outside the big 2. its not exactly a ringing endorsement of the league if half of the players arent hitting the ground running over there. people dont realise how far behind this league is to something like spl/l1. its a bit mad considering how many of the leagues defenders go to games!

Of that list literally only 2 have actually “not made it”. Still part time players and yet the one game when one team played the other it was a comfortable win for the Irish side. Plus any player with any aspirations of a career in football will go to England rather than Scotland, bar the poor souls who still think Celtic is a good option, even if it’s only L1 / L2 which possibly skews the statistic abit.

After seeing the list I’m already dreading even beginning this discussion as you appear to be another pineapple and religiously defend the SPL no matter what, if only you were this passionate about Irish football!

L1 I could go with potentially but don’t try throw the SPL in that discussion. After this summer I would pipe down if I was you for you’re own credibility’s sake.

PS I’m not a LOI defender if just trying to give some of ye SPL supporters a little dose of reality, you aren’t as great as you think you are, when will that get in you’re head? Does another LOI side need to pull your pants down for you to realize it?

[RealJohn91]

Someone has been enjoying their Christmas

[Jd2793]

Of that list literally only 2 have actually “not made it”. Still part time players and yet the one game when one team played the other it was a comfortable win for the Irish side.

After seeing the list I’m already dreading even beginning this discussion as you appear to be another pineapple and religiously defend the SPL no matter what, if only you were this passionate about Irish football!

L1 I could go with potentially but don’t try throw the SPL in that discussion. After this summer I would pipe down if I was you for you’re own credibility’s sake.

PS I’m not a LOI defender if just trying to give some of ye SPL supporters a little dose of reality, you aren’t as great as you think you are, when will that get in you’re head? Does another LOI side need to pull your pants down for you to realize it?

all of those listed didnt make it. mceneff was one of the best midfiedlers in this league(only behind Jack B in my book), 7 spl starts and he was sent off to oz. mahon needs a loan , mcmillan and boyle useless. tierney is again struggling for game time but should come good as hes a real talent.
you do realise a 1 game sample means, nothing? again i cite cork city beating malmo in 00's and hacken in 16. did that tell us our league was better? did we have foreign players banging down the doors of clubs here to play after those games? or were they just really good one off performances from teams who did a lot better than expected given their resources? i mean sligo were average last year, they very nearly p1ssed the bed against a team from a pub league the round before. mcginty saved their bacon. fairplay to them for turning over a team from a better league with bigger resources though!
i couldnt give a toss about SPL but pretending our league here is better than is does no good to anyone, does it? it would be a good eye opener for you no doubt. 1 tie proves nothing.

[nigel-harps1954]

So here it is..merry Christmas.. everybody's having fun.

[CSAD]

all of those listed didnt make it. mceneff was one of the best midfiedlers in this league(only behind Jack B in my book), 7 spl starts and he was sent off to oz. mahon needs a loan , mcmillan and boyle useless. tierney is again struggling for game time but should come good as hes a real talent.
you do realise a 1 game sample means, nothing? again i cite cork city beating malmo in 00's and hacken in 16. did that tell us our league was better? did we have foreign players banging down the doors of clubs here to play after those games? or were they just really good one off performances from teams who did a lot better than expected given their resources? i mean sligo were average last year, they very nearly p1ssed the bed against a team from a pub league the round before. mcginty saved their bacon. fairplay to them for turning over a team from a better league with bigger resources though!
i couldnt give a toss about SPL but pretending our league here is better than is does no good to anyone, does it? it would be a good eye opener for you no doubt. 1 tie proves nothing.

So basically all the journeymen that had no aspiration for a career boost went to Scotland bar Tierney & Mahon… Reiterating what I said previously, any player with real aspiration of a career in football will go to England.

Hacken I didn’t read anything into because they only qualified because they won the Swedish cup, that season they were a mid table Swedish side so were always going to be there for the taking. I’m two actually Greg Bolger and Maguire were wanted by two sides Cork played in qualifying that campaign.

Average and yet were comfortably better than the SPL side…a team from a higher ranked league you mean.

I’m surprised you denied you are an SPL fan, I thought you’d just come out and admit it. Oh
Sorry did I give the impression I was pretending, my apologies, What I think does no one any good is these SPL fans thinking their league is better than it is just because Celtic and Rangers save their ass every year. These fans need a serious reality check of their standing in football.

[Another Bohemia]

not a big enough sample size of loi vs first team spl sides to come to any meaningful conclusion. i mean cork city beat hacken in 2016 over 2 legs, nobody has ever said loi is better than sweden premier division after that result... maybe look at all those good/very good loi players who havent made it over there.its either every club scouting poorly or just that players arent good enough...

I think there is certainly an element of Scottish teams scouting poorly. I'm taking Ross Tierney as an example. Any time I've seen him play for Motherwell he's been played in a wide position. One of the last places I'd ever think of playing him. He has the energy but not the trickery or speed for that position. Put him in the middle and he can press the oppositions defense and poach a goal(if played in the 10) or if you play him deeper he can play box to box and be very effective at breaking up play and linking attack & defence. Now he's had a change of manager so maybe that is the problem here but even the manager that signed him tried him out wide.

Outside of that I think while Scottish teams have more spending power and more support they suffer from something a lot of LoI teams suffer from. Anyone that excels at their job (player, coach, DoF etc) will ultimately be looking to leave and when the best are leaving on a semi regular basis then you will get results like Sligo beating Motherwell because what's left may not be as good or motivated. Game to game there probably wouldn't be much between a lower level SPL team and a good LoI team but over the course of a season that's when the wheat would be separated from the chaff.

[outspoken]

So here it is..merry Christmas.. everybody's having fun.

Tis the season for arguing over league comparisons, merry christmas everyone

[Kiki Balboa]

It is a silly argument that says because the transfers of x,y, and z do not work out in a league, said league is of better quality.

Football Transfers are far from an exact science- there are many different variables why a player might work out at team 1 but not team 2. Its funny as the argument only ever works one way. No body is looking at Delli Alli and saying Turkish football is a force to be rekoned with.

[CSAD]

I think there is certainly an element of Scottish teams scouting poorly. I'm taking Ross Tierney as an example. Any time I've seen him play for Motherwell he's been played in a wide position. One of the last places I'd ever think of playing him. He has the energy but not the trickery or speed for that position. Put him in the middle and he can press the oppositions defense and poach a goal(if played in the 10) or if you play him deeper he can play box to box and be very effective at breaking up play and linking attack & defence. Now he's had a change of manager so maybe that is the problem here but even the manager that signed him tried him out wide.

Outside of that I think while Scottish teams have more spending power and more support they suffer from something a lot of LoI teams suffer from. Anyone that excels at their job (player, coach, DoF etc) will ultimately be looking to leave and when the best are leaving on a semi regular basis then you will get results like Sligo beating Motherwell because what's left may not be as good or motivated. Game to game there probably wouldn't be much between a lower level SPL team and a good LoI team but over the course of a season that's when the wheat would be separated from the chaff.

And that is why any Irish player with career ambitions should, and usually do, avoid Scotland.

But which Motherwell player left? Looking at their fan forums pre match I didn’t hear much about a player leaving so I don’t see how that could be used as an excuse plus if they are playing an Irish side that normally has the same issues like you said then surely that works both ways and if anything Sligo could say they lost Johnny Kenny.

And you see this is the start of the moving of the goalposts. This was 2 teams that are mid table in their league and in this case there wasn’t any real gap in quality that was suggested pre match, granted I’d wager these Motherwell fans hadn’t watched a second of Sligo pre match.

[Jd2793]

And that is why any Irish player with career ambitions should, and usually do, avoid Scotland.

But which Motherwell player left? Looking at their fan forums pre match I didn’t hear much about a player leaving so I don’t see how that could be used as an excuse plus if they are playing an Irish side that normally has the same issues like you said then surely that works both ways and if anything Sligo could say they lost Johnny Kenny.

And you see this is the start of the moving of the goalposts. This was 2 teams that are mid table in their league and in this case there wasn’t any real gap in quality that was suggested pre match, granted I’d wager these Motherwell fans hadn’t watched a second of Sligo pre match.

there wasnt any gap in quality between sligo and bala town either. mcginty kept them in the game. is that pub league on par with LOI now? or could it be that you cant really gain anything from a once off 2 legged tie? any idea who sligo replaced kenny with btw?

[sheao]

Great signing for Cobh getting Jack Doherty.


http://cobhramblers.ie/jack-doherty-is-a-ram/

[CSAD]

there wasnt any gap in quality between sligo and bala town either. mcginty kept them in the game. is that pub league on par with LOI now? or could it be that you cant really gain anything from a once off 2 legged tie? any idea who sligo replaced kenny with btw?

Or paint it another way, is a pub side better than a SPL side given the side Bala town came close to beating smashed Motherwell only a week or so later?

The big difference is Sligo still got the job done. When Motherwell were supposed to be a big favorite, in SPL fans eyes anyway, they got battered. Slight difference there.

They replaced him with Aidan Keena.

[Another Bohemia]

And that is why any Irish player with career ambitions should, and usually do, avoid Scotland.

But which Motherwell player left? Looking at their fan forums pre match I didn’t hear much about a player leaving so I don’t see how that could be used as an excuse plus if they are playing an Irish side that normally has the same issues like you said then surely that works both ways and if anything Sligo could say they lost Johnny Kenny.

And you see this is the start of the moving of the goalposts. This was 2 teams that are mid table in their league and in this case there wasn’t any real gap in quality that was suggested pre match, granted I’d wager these Motherwell fans hadn’t watched a second of Sligo pre match.

I was speaking in generalities. What you see in the Scottish league is the best players, managers etc moving up the league until they get to the Glasgow clubs and then making the journey south to the English leagues. AFAIK Motherwell actually scraped into the conference league at the end of the previous season they weren't a strong team and needed improvement. They still lost a player to Rangers. The same way Bohs were a bad team last year and are still losing players to the UK (Promise, Devoy and inexplicably Ciaran Kelly & Rory Feely). Also if you put Motherwell into the premier division with their current squad and resources they wouldn't be scraping European qualification. That's the crux of my point. Sligo deservedly won vs Motherwell but on the course of a season those individual results will balance out. The same way Bohs beat rovers 3 times (twice in the league once in the cup) during the 2021 season but were nowhere near winning the league. Individual results mean very little in terms of quality.

[CSAD]

I was speaking in generalities. What you see in the Scottish league is the best players, managers etc moving up the league until they get to the Glasgow clubs and then making the journey south to the English leagues. AFAIK Motherwell actually scraped into the conference league at the end of the previous season they weren't a strong team and needed improvement. They still lost a player to Rangers. The same way Bohs were a bad team last year and are still losing players to the UK (Promise, Devoy and inexplicably Ciaran Kelly & Rory Feely). Also if you put Motherwell into the premier division with their current squad and resources they wouldn't be scraping European qualification. That's the crux of my point. Sligo deservedly won vs Motherwell but on the course of a season those individual results will balance out. The same way Bohs beat rovers 3 times (twice in the league once in the cup) during the 2021 season but were nowhere near winning the league. Individual results mean very little in terms of quality.

Maybe but at the same time like you said that is also a case in Ireland yet when talking about the Sligo Motherwell game you highlighted how it affects Motherwell but ignore how it affects Sligo.

Yep and Sligo lost a player to Celtic…I forgot his name now… Well they lost 3-0 to a side that didn’t even make Europe themselves in the LOI for 2023 so I wouldn’t be so confident if I was you.

Again you seem to be biased to one side in this argument especially when you ignore the fact that the same issues apply for Sligo.

[pineapple stu]

Sligo deservedly won vs Motherwell but on the course of a season those individual results will balance out. The same way Bohs beat rovers 3 times (twice in the league once in the cup) during the 2021 season but were nowhere near winning the league. Individual results mean very little in terms of quality.

Don't forget too that if you're going to play a side with a bit of squad turnover, July (their pre-season/LoI mid-season) is the best time for it.

[ontheotherhand]

I think there is certainly an element of Scottish teams scouting poorly. I'm taking Ross Tierney as an example. Any time I've seen him play for Motherwell he's been played in a wide position. One of the last places I'd ever think of playing him. He has the energy but not the trickery or speed for that position. Put him in the middle and he can press the oppositions defense and poach a goal(if played in the 10) or if you play him deeper he can play box to box and be very effective at breaking up play and linking attack & defence. Now he's had a change of manager so maybe that is the problem here but even the manager that signed him tried him out wide.

Outside of that I think while Scottish teams have more spending power and more support they suffer from something a lot of LoI teams suffer from. Anyone that excels at their job (player, coach, DoF etc) will ultimately be looking to leave and when the best are leaving on a semi regular basis then you will get results like Sligo beating Motherwell because what's left may not be as good or motivated. Game to game there probably wouldn't be much between a lower level SPL team and a good LoI team but over the course of a season that's when the wheat would be separated from the chaff.

I'd add McEneff to the misused pile. Never really got a chance in his best position over there. Played wide right instead of as a box to box midfielder. Even their fans seemed to think that if you read their forum. That said, it's still a step up and it's a bit ridiculous to claim otherwise. Our best teams might hold their own but our worst would be trounced every week in the SPL. Sligo did very well against a shambles if a Motherwell side. Fair play to Sligo but that was a side in a desperate state.

Ultimately who cares though? I'd rather follow the LoI any day of the week than a league with only 1 or 2 possible winners who basically don't change.

[CSAD]

I'd add McEneff to the misused pile. Never really got a chance in his best position over there. Played wide right instead of as a box to box midfielder. Even their fans seemed to think that if you read their forum. That said, it's still a step up and it's a bit ridiculous to claim otherwise. Our best teams might hold their own but our worst would be trounced every week in the SPL. Sligo did very well against a shambles if a Motherwell side. Fair play to Sligo but that was a side in a desperate state.

Ultimately who cares though? I'd rather follow the LoI any day of the week than a league with only 1 or 2 possible winners who basically don't change.

I’m noticing a pattern. And yet we think we should trust any Scottish side with youth development over England or elsewhere, they don’t even know what to do with senior players.

Our worst get trounced even in the Irish league…Here’s a question, were people saying Motherwell were a mess prior to kick off or were they only saying after their pants was pulled down? Big difference there. Looking at vlogs and other fans reactions pre kick off there was little to say there was a mess prior to kick off in fact some were already talking about the next round of qualifying… they got their pants pulled down and were completely outplayed by a mid table LOI side, that’s the reality.

[CSAD]

Don't forget too that if you're going to play a side with a bit of squad turnover, July (their pre-season/LoI mid-season) is the best time for it.

…Are you still here!

Damn that’s excuse number…how many I’m losing count.

Okay you tell me what turnover exactly did they have in detail, which players left that hindered their chances?