Bruce Anderson

[Kilgore trout]

Just you keep talking to your counsellor about your drink problems and keep your daft ramblings to yourself.

Comedy Gold

[Jackjarvis]

Just you keep talking to your counsellor about your drink problems and keep your daft ramblings to yourself.

Drink problems......ehh?.....you are like a clone of another poster......anyway, golfing soon up Deeside and the losers will have to buy lunch including a well earned pint or two.......mind you, after reading your bizarre post I might just have a shandy.....as if!!

Brucie is well worth a run and I look forward to see him progress under our current management team.

SF

[RED_JOHN]

Drink problems......ehh?.....you are like a clone of another poster......anyway, golfing soon up Deeside and the losers will have to buy lunch including a well earned pint or two.......mind you, after reading your bizarre post I might just have a shandy.....as if!!

Brucie is well worth a run and I look forward to see him progress under our current management team.

SF

At least you acknowledge your drinking problem, that’s a good sign.

I think Bruce Anderson will be good for our manager as he certainly has saved him from a lot more scrutiny after securing a point against the 10 man team.

Enjoy your golf lad.

[DollyLongstaffe]

Although not all b'ollocks it has to be said that Celtic's financial advantage over us has never been marginal.

It's not that straightforward. Your budget isn't your income, it's how much you choose to spend on the playing side. In the 80s (our most successful period) Rangers were massively, massively wealthier than us but they didn't act like it. In those days it would not have been considered a prudent or sensible use of money to massively outspend the rest of the league to dominate the domestic game. Simple economics was a huge part of it: an extra £1 spent had to be justified by at least an extra £1 of income, and if Rangers spent the same proportion of their income on the footballing side as clubs typically do now, the increase in their income would have been dwarfed by the increase in their expenditure.

So Rangers strategy was to spend enough more than their rivals to give them a strong probability of domestic success, but not the massively higher amounts they'd have needed to spend to guarantee it.

What changed all that was the massive increase in money to be made in Europe. You had to win the league to get access to that, and suddenly it made sense to spend what it took to guarantee it.

That was a disaster for AFC, because the Glasgow clubs who were massively richer than us had a huge incentive to make sure no other club could win the league.

In the 80s Celtic's income was around half of Rangers. Yes, they could have significantly outspent us but didn't, because that just wasn't the culture at the time. If the current values existed in the 80s, the Glasgow clubs would simply have creamed off the best of the outstanding crop of players we'd produced and we'd likely have won eff all. They didn't because they weren't paying that much more and players who were happy where they were (and this was also pre-Bosman, so it was harder to just pick up another clubs players).

So the 80s wasn't a completely level playing field between us and Celtic, but it was pretty damn close, and nothing like the gulf that exists now. A couple of times we showed interest in the same player and it was not a foregone conclusion which club he would choose, because we were matching Celtic's wage offers.

It's a persistent fantasy of a section of our support that after Fergie there could be a second Messiah, a guy who comes in and turns the club into title winners again. Even a manager who by any objective judgement is successful fails the not-the-Messiah test for them. It just ignores how massively the game has changed, European money, clubs spending every cent they earn, Bosman. Fergie would have no more chance of building a title winning side here under the current circumstances than Alex Miller or Mark Mcghee.

[Jackjarvis]

At least you acknowledge your drinking problem, that’s a good sign.

I think Bruce Anderson will be good for our manager as he certainly has saved him from a lot more scrutiny after securing a point against the 10 man team.

Enjoy your golf lad.

Golf was great, thanks, decent weather and company of whom all have had a fair chortle at your trolling as we await our Sandy Michaels at my team’s expense......no problem with us wee man and you continue to scrutinise our management team who are currently locked in talks with players......meanwhile, looking forward to chicken Rob Roy and then heading home to take in a game.

SF

[donsdaft]

Celtic always had a huge income compared to us.

How their directors spent (sneaked home with) the money was up to them.

We beat them then and we can beat the now.


An acceptance of the difficulties in overcoming the financial difference I can understand.

To give up without trying (before a ball is even kicked) is pathetic.

Why even follow football?

[RED_JOHN]

Golf was great, thanks, decent weather and company of whom all have had a fair chortle at your trolling as we await our Sandy Michaels at my team’s expense......no problem with us wee man and you continue to scrutinise our management team who are currently locked in talks with players......meanwhile, looking forward to chicken Rob Roy and then heading home to take in a game.

SF

Your team got beat at golf?! What did you hit today? Not many folk have called 6’2” me wee man...that did make me laugh though so I will give you that. At 44 years of age I have never really got into golf. Between you and me, I don’t think I have the temperament and patience for such a sport. Plus the fact some idiots wear plus fours which look ridiculous.
On the footballing side of things....Derek McInnes is the golf of making football signings, boring as f@ck.

[Red Zone]

Good post Dolly and whilst I agree with your overall sentiment about the playing field being more level back in the 80's I would make the following comments.

As far as the now defunct rangers are concerned, I would separate the 80's into the pre and post Souness years. In the pre years rangers were not "massively massively wealthier" than us. Their average crowds in those years was 21K only (including many games where they had less than 10K attending) in a time with basically no TV money and minimal European prize money hence why we could pretty much match wages being offered. After Souness was appointed they started on their spending spree that ultimately resulted in them ceasing to exist (and being replaced by sevco), partly funded by increased crowds (38K in last 4 years of decade) and partly funded by Murray but a lot of the funding came from debt. Note the team we beat in the 89 cup final was Woods, Stevens, Gough, Butcher, Munro, Steven, Ferguson, Wilkins, Walters, McCoist, Mo Johnson with McCall and Brown on the bench. I bet that pretty much most of that team were all getting paid a lot more than any of our players other than perhaps Miller, McLeish and Nicholas.

As for celtic, their average home attendance during the Fergie years was only 22K so again like rangers no surprise that we could match their wages when you consider the old biscuit tin mentality that existed at celtic at that time. Their average attendances didn't get up to the 40/50K mark until after Fergus took over in the mid 90's

However onto the main point, which is looking forward for us. I refuse to accept that we will never win the league again even with the bigot brothers in the league. Whilst I do accept they will spend more money and generally have better players, we must always remember that out of the 38 games we play they can only influence the outcome of 8 of them. We have to focus on continuing to do what we have been recently very good at, which is beating the rest of the teams in the league and then trying to get as close as possible to a 50/50 split of points against the bigot brothers. I accept when a team like celtic gets 90+ points we won't be winning the league but in the years when they are a bit off we need to be well placed to take advantage. For those thinking I am mad let's consider that 3 of the last 10 winning point totals were 79,82 and 83 points. Our last 4 seasons we have 71,73,75 and 76 points. I refuse to believe that the gap is not bridgeable with a bit more belief from us, particularly in the bigger games in those down years.

Just as importantly, if not more so, is whilst many think that winning a cup is a lottery, it really is not. 17 out of the last 20 Scottish cup winners finished in the top 3 in the league, likewise 15 of the last 20 league cup winners. So by having a real go in the league and finishing in a strong position not surprisingly vastly increases the chances of winning a cup, which I acknowledge is our best route to winning a trophy.

Sorry Bruce, I know this thread was meant to be about you but couldn't help myself in replying to Dolly.

[Aldo1983]

Bruce Anderson starting for us wouldn't do him any favours if he doesn't score. He'd be better coming off the bench again.

[ragnarok]

Good post Dolly and whilst I agree with your overall sentiment about the playing field being more level back in the 80's I would make the following comments.

As far as the now defunct rangers are concerned, I would separate the 80's into the pre and post Souness years. In the pre years rangers were not "massively massively wealthier" than us. Their average crowds in those years was 21K only (including many games where they had less than 10K attending) in a time with basically no TV money and minimal European prize money hence why we could pretty much match wages being offered. After Souness was appointed they started on their spending spree that ultimately resulted in them ceasing to exist (and being replaced by sevco), partly funded by increased crowds (38K in last 4 years of decade) and partly funded by Murray but a lot of the funding came from debt. Note the team we beat in the 89 cup final was Woods, Stevens, Gough, Butcher, Munro, Steven, Ferguson, Wilkins, Walters, McCoist, Mo Johnson with McCall and Brown on the bench. I bet that pretty much most of that team were all getting paid a lot more than any of our players other than perhaps Miller, McLeish and Nicholas.

As for celtic, their average home attendance during the Fergie years was only 22K so again like rangers no surprise that we could match their wages when you consider the old biscuit tin mentality that existed at celtic at that time. Their average attendances didn't get up to the 40/50K mark until after Fergus took over in the mid 90's

However onto the main point, which is looking forward for us. I refuse to accept that we will never win the league again even with the bigot brothers in the league. Whilst I do accept they will spend more money and generally have better players, we must always remember that out of the 38 games we play they can only influence the outcome of 8 of them. We have to focus on continuing to do what we have been recently very good at, which is beating the rest of the teams in the league and then trying to get as close as possible to a 50/50 split of points against the bigot brothers. I accept when a team like celtic gets 90+ points we won't be winning the league but in the years when they are a bit off we need to be well placed to take advantage. For those thinking I am mad let's consider that 3 of the last 10 winning point totals were 79,82 and 83 points. Our last 4 seasons we have 71,73,75 and 76 points. I refuse to believe that the gap is not bridgeable with a bit more belief from us, particularly in the bigger games in those down years.

Just as importantly, if not more so, is whilst many think that winning a cup is a lottery, it really is not. 17 out of the last 20 Scottish cup winners finished in the top 3 in the league, likewise 15 of the last 20 league cup winners. So by having a real go in the league and finishing in a strong position not surprisingly vastly increases the chances of winning a cup, which I acknowledge is our best route to winning a trophy.

Sorry Bruce, I know this thread was meant to be about you but couldn't help myself in replying to Dolly.

Some good posts. Better than the usual pant p*shing over our lack of signings and how apparently awful the manager is.

Before we can consider the likelihood of AFC challenging Celtic within the current financial paradigm, we need to look at what circumstances would allow that to happen. A portion of it is good management on and off the pitch (lacking for most of Milne's time at the club but the last 5 years has been a massive improvement), the rest luck and timing.

With regards to the McInnes era, on the one hand we had a manager who benefitted from a decent inheritance from the previous manager. We already had the core of a decent team so McInnes didn't have a massive rebuilding job in his first season. So coming into McInnes' first season, the club was well placed to take advantage of the h*ns absence and the weakness of Hearts and Hibs. This can be partially attributed to improved management off the pitch under Brown - although his last season petered out he had made two key acquisitions the previous summer in McGinn and Hayes who turned out to be the star performers under McInnes.

So we have a solid manager stepping into the job with a squad that is decent and favourable landscape in terms of competition with ICT, United and Motherwell being our closest rivals for second rather than the better resourced h*ns, Hearts and Hibs. There is convergence of improved management and good timing.

This has given us the opportunity to position ourselves as Celtic's closest challengers for half a decade. While some will question whether this is an 'achievement' given the haul of only a single trophy, they should at least acknowledge that it isn't easy to perform at this level consistently and therefore I don't think it's a reasonable position to consider that we should have performed consistently better than we have. To put it another way, I would argue that if you mapped out the probability of league performance as a bell curve in each of McInnes' seasons I think our actual performance would fall in at least the third quartile (50-75th percentile) each season. Accordingly, an argument could be made that in one of those five seasons we should have performed a bit better but the counter argument is that we should have faltered in at least one of those seasons. I think this is part of the reason for some of the antipathy towards McInnes - he has been a consistent performer but that has also has manifested in disappointments at the sharp end of things. We have tended to 'bottle' the big matches that have the potential to transform a good season into a great season.

That said, I think that McInnes' management has successful by any objective measure. If you ask me what it would have taken for us to run Celtic closer in the past 5 seasons, I think one thing we lacked was an x factor. We had a starting XI full of players who were better than any of the players in the team below us but realistically none of them would be regular starters for Celtic. Hayes and McGinn were both capable of delivering at key moments but we lacked a real star performer who could step up and lead the team to success - someone of the calibre of Hartley when he was at Hearts or Robson when he was at United.

Which takes us to our youth system which I think has been a missing necessary component in the "next level" success some fans crave. There have been few success stories and without developing our own players we are relying on our modest resources to bring in players who are capable of challenging (increasingly difficult as this transfer window has demonstrated). We have circumvented this to some extent by poaching players developed by other clubs such as Shinnie, McLean and now Ferguson. A handful of really talented and exciting youngsters might have been the additional factor that would have pushed up our performance in any of the past five seasons.