Reply With QuoteAfter the golf, on it like a car bonnet.....why?Originally Posted by Mason89
SF
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To answer this question you need to start with what does it mean to be at the "next level". Is it
1. To win the league or at least be in the shake-up at the end of the season
2. To win a cup say every two/three years
3. To qualify for the Europa League Group stages
4. To be capable of winning every game we play, which we currently clearly are not
5. To play attractive football that entertains the fans but maybe doesn't grind out as many wins
For me the next level probably covers most of the above but the most important is number 1 so let's start there. I agree that we can't or won't compete with Celtic in particular or sevco in financial terms short of something very strange happening that we can ignore for the purposes of this debate. BUT we mustn't ever equate that with we can never win the league. I accept that if all three teams get the same value for each pound spent then we will be third at best. HOWEVER what I think we need to be aiming for is a team that is good enough to take advantage if the two with the most money don't get good value for money (Carlos Pena), have a sh@t manager (Delia, Caixhina) or have some bad luck (what if Brown and Dembele or Griffiths got season ending injuries in the first week of February). Leicester didn't win the league because they were exceptionally good, but rather the big 6 all imploded for one reason or another.
So what does that mean we have to do extra? We currently have 69 points so will likely end up with circa 70 points. If we ignore last season the prior 10 years the league was won with an average of 88 points. This season Celtic will likely end up with 87 points. So how do we get to say 85 points, which would be enough to win the league if the rich two have a slightly off year?
This season we have taken 47 out of 54 points from the bottom six. Needless to say not much improvement possible there but no reason why we shouldn't be able to repeat that in future seasons. If we assume one draw and one defeat say from last two games then we will have a fairly miserable 23 out of 60 points from top 6 teams (6 wins, 5 draws and 9 defeats). So to get to 85 points we need to push the 23 up to 38 out of 60 so say 11 wins, 5 draws and 4 defeats (before people start saying impossible just remember that this season Hibs will have 34 points from top 6 games if they beat Hearts and draw with sevco in last two games). Clearly the big improvement needs to come from better results against Celtic/sevco, which of course has the twin benefit of reducing their points total.
For those of you still awake at this stage of my waffle let me get to my main point, which is how do we make this improvement without a significant change in our level of funding. Probably three options (none of which is rocket science)
1. Improve the strike rate of bosman signings (which by and large is all we will be able to afford). McInnes has had some good successes here over the years (Lewis/Shinnie/Rooney/Logan/Robson) but not enough to offset the O'Connor/Maynard/etc/etc/etc
2. Improve players once they are actually signed. I am a McInnes fan but this is a huge missing for me as there are very very few examples of players brought in at a certain standard who we then improve on the training pitch and see the benefit in subsequent matches. Clearly if we were able to do this then we get two benefits, improved results in the meantime and then later hopefully a good transfer fee as we sell an improved player (money to be reinvested hopefully to create a virtuous circle)
3. Develop our own youth players and then give them a chance in the first team. Again clearly one of McInnes weaknesses or to be fair a weakness of our entire youth system. This is crucial and for me the number one way we have of building a team capable of getting to that 85 point mark. Typically this is a low cost route to getting first team players if done right (players paid peanuts until a fully fledged first team player - look at McKenna's various pay rises), more likely to get loyalty from players and a bit more years out of them before they want to bu@@er off if they have been with the club since the age of 9 and hopefully a good transfer fee for an early/mid 20 something, money again to be reinvested in team. Think how close Hibs might have come to winning the league if they hadn't sold so quickly their Brown/Griffiths/Whittaker/Thomson era of youngsters.
I know, I know, I know, all sounds simple on paper but would be bl@@dy hard to achieve, but we are fans and we want to believe that we can still win the league if the rich two slip up a little bit so let's not automatically assume that just cos they have more money we can only ever finish behind them.
Whilst this diatribe has focussed on how to win the league I really believe that if we have a team capable of getting to 85 points then we absolutely have a team capable of winning a cup every two years or so and getting to the Europa Group stages now and again
For the small number of you that has persevered to the end, my apologies for the length of post, it must be a slow Sunday night!!!
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After the golf, on it like a car bonnet.....why?
SF
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If Hibs are the benchmark, then why are they 3 points behind us.
Those three points are equivalent to the extra win we have over them.
Also, many suggest we shouldn’t be taking loan players, yet the Hibs attack are all loan players. (Kamberi, MacLaren, Allan, Barker).
Where would they be without these loan players?
I’m not buying into the Hibs spunk fest to be honest.
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You didn’t read the post properly.
I never said they were the “benchmark”.
Hibs “in games against the bigot brothers” I said.
We are flat track bullies.
IF we had their mentality in the “big games” then we’d be fine.
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As long as we’re able to beat the bottom 6 and not threaten the final qualifying round of the Europa dereks fan club will be happy.
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Just to be noted. Young Boys have won the league in Switzerland. Stopping Basel getting 9 in a row. Basel have more money than the rest of the league combined. Young Boys have never been in the Chump League and have never had the pay day of it obviously. Basel have had plenty.
Theres hope for us yet. We should take the Bernese as a blueprint. Ha
Hopp YB
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Hibs are a funny club.
Their model during the John Park era was the one to which every club in their/our bracket should subscribe, recruit, develop/coach, sell.
But, let's be honest, they were a cluster f u c k for long enough, culminating in the Terry Butcher/ relegation fiasco.
They've got their sh1t together now, Leanne Dempster, and have their infrastructure in place due to the historic bounty of the Park era.
That's our problem, we do not have the infrastructure in place.
Whatever our first team do on the park, off the park we're way off the pace.
The new ground......I'm genuinely on the fence, I just don't know.
I am not remotely convinced leaving AB24 is a good move, I think the move North is fraught, but there's no doubt we need a training complex.
I am not convinced that Milne is the man to oversee what's coming, in fact I'm pretty convinced he's not.
"May you live in interesting times".
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So what’s Hibs mentality in the rest of the games?
Surely if they have the record against top 6 sides that we should aspire to, then in counterbalance, their performance against the bottom 6 must be dire.
That would frustrate me and remind me of the days when we couldn’t beat the crap around us, yet “raised our game” in the cheeks games.
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I was asked “how can we improve/go to next level”.
I answered.
Be like Hibs in terms of attitude in the big games.
That’s it.
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Or...we could play like we do against the bottom six and maybe look at Hibs to find what they do to beat the top six? (Although we all know, except one person)
It's not exclusive.
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