You know what? The final fixture list isn’t even out yet and I’m already sick of hearing the whinging about it.
Today Football Scotland is having a little moan about how we “should” – as it stands – face five matches away and will probably only have to face three. As it stands, the Ibrox club “should” have five games at home and will only get three.
Oh boo-hoo and how tragic.
We were in this same position last year and some of our websites, this one included, moaned about it and we were told that the script would be flipped this season.
Well, that’s one of those instances where things have “evened themselves out”.
It is not evidence of some conspiracy, unless those involved in it rigged the standings of teams going into the last few weeks … in short, unless we fixed every match to get the league table looking this way there is nothing to see here.
They can cease their bitching.
This presents a “headache” for the league. So we’re told.
There’s no headache here. Apply the damned rules. Pick which two of the games we’re getting at home and which of their two they are playing away. This is what it says in the book.
Unfair? This time last year, when it looked like the squeeze would affect us no-one cared and so I don’t care now.
This will open up a discussion about the split. Good. Let’s have one.
We’re not going to hide from that debate and nor should we. The split it, and has always been, a third-rate idiotic solution to a problem we should never have allowed to be caused.
The split exists because clubs are greedy.
Two teams less in the league and there wouldn’t be an issue. Play everyone four times and we’d have a 44 game league season. So instead we have this bizarre hybrid which has always been absolutely farcical.
It should have been abolished ages ago, but the idea of two less clubs in the league would never get to a vote and the idea of 44 league games is a prospect that frankly horrifies most people.
This is what we’ve got, for better or worse, and the only way to change it is by the clubs getting together and coming up with a different – not necessarily better, but different – system.
In the absence of that, clubs simply have to get on with it.
That’s what we were told last season.
Not a soul was crying the blues on our behalf when it looked like we would get extra away games. We were told to just get on with it … and we did exactly that and we won the league anyway.
The message to Ibrox should be no different.
Their media allies are suddenly shocked to learn that the system we have sometimes throws up unfair outcomes.
How sad.
Unfair outcomes are what we live with, and we still manage to keep on winning.
Even if we did have to play 5 games away from home, it would make no difference to the outcome, we would still win the 2nd leg of the Treble. Them, bitching about it makes me gleeful, suck it up losers!
The ‘journalists’ having a moan have it ass backwards.
The priority in scheduling these fixtures is to ensure each club will play 19 home matches and 19 away matches throughout the entire season. It is NOT to balance home and away fixtures against each individual opponent. As it currently stands, Celtic will play 17 at home and 16 away before the split. These ‘journalists’ somehow think that Celtic are ‘supposed’ to play 17 at home and 21 away over the course of a full season, and anything approaching an even 19-19 split is a travesty.
Honestly. Some people… I’ve seen swamp algae with more brain cells to rub together.
Well put, great point, this is the argument our board should put forward, if they grew balls.
Larger leagues, as in the old days, would solve this. For example, 2 leagues of 20 teams each. A third division could also be added with suitable clubs. No split would be required as in every other modern thinking country. Only the SFA could have come up with the split. The SFA is not fit for purpose, being full of lazy and stupid has-beens. No wonder they cannot attract decent sponsorship.
If each club played each other twice, then this would increase competition as each club would only meet Celtic twice and Anger FC twice. Standards would improve. They all would only have to beat either of them once to increase competition. As it stands, facing each of them 4 times in a season makes it much harder for them to compete.
All we hear about in Scotland is reducing things to the lowest common denominator rather than trying catch up with others by gradually improving your own situation.
The balance of home and away fixtures caused by split is always going to cause friction. However, if you lose 2 teams from the league, you don’t get a 44 game league if everyone plays each other four times, you get what we used to have before we expanded the league from 10 teams to 12, which is a 36game season. (9 x 4) They moved away from that model because teams were fed up playing each other four times a season.
James meant that the split was created to solve the problem of moving to a 12 team league from the 10 team league because if they kept the “everyone plays each other 4 times” it would have meant a 44 game season.
I think as a compromise to solving the smaller clubs income issue re losing games vs Celtic/Rangers they should go to a league of 14 and have a 6:8 split after everyone has played each other home and away – top 6 play each other home and away again (meaning they will play 36 games in total ) and bottom 8 play each other home and away again (meaning they play 40 games in total i.e. 20 home games which offsets only playing Celtic and Rangers at home once each). It also means the teams who are in Europe will play less domestic games thus helping them in Europe which is to everyone’s benefit if it helps our coefficient…
Will possibly have the league already won before the split so what’s the issue?
One’s thing that’s nearly certain is there’s next to no chance of us being allowed to become champions at that scummy shithole
Give us 5 away, we’re playing better away from home.
The sensible thing is a 16-team SPL (h & a), League Cup, Scottish Cup and free dates around European ties. Alas, money talks.
As Postie says, if teams were “numbers” at the beginning of the season it would be pre-conditional.
Easier to let those top 6 outwith top 2 do a couple of games between them to decide on final positions. Team in 7th place with more points than 6 is daft.
BTW Killie have 18 players out of contract this summer and 8 going back from loan…. what a mess.
SFA,VAR,REFS,THE ESTABLISHMENT,THEY HAVE ALL TRIED TO STOP THE BEST TEAM IN THE COUNTRY,BRING IT ON,ANYBODY OUT THERE WANT TO BUY A GOOD FOOTBALLER,WE CAN OBLIGE NO PROBLEM,WE HAVE LOADS,HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!HMRC