The great thing about the split in the Premiership is that almost every game has an edge. With three games to reach the top half, Hearts, who visit on Saturday, are just one point ahead of seventh place Motherwell.
Our next two games are home to St Johnstone, who are five point adrift of Dundee but have closed the looked like an unbridgeable gap two months ago. Then we have Kilmarnock, who are just a point above Dundee in the relegation playoff spot.
Only the top two spots seem assured. By comparison, The bottom half of the English Premier League is dead. There is a nine point gap between the relegation spots and the rest, at this stage of the season, too much to bridge. There are several English clubs with something to play for in Europe, but the majority of games in that league are without jeopardy.
The Scottish top flight was best as a top 10, half the league qualified for Europe, two were automatically relegated and the three in between were battling for or against one or the other.
Sport thrives with a competitive edge. This is unmanageable with too many unrewarded survivors, or a disparity between Champions League and semi-professional sides. Bring back the top 10.
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SOS ,Fraser Forster 🙏
Will Dermot burst the bank for Caoimhin Kelleher ☘️🇮🇪🙏
Tiny Tim
Wise post TT
Years ago on an outdoor course we got lectured on how ‘play’ has been privatized.
Football was the example given
Join a team and pay now,dont be playing on the srreets youll get knocked down.
No longer does the managers wife wash the strips.
Locally around me in the south side
5 lost grass pitches you wouldnt walk a dog on now
21 grass pitches lost to A77 at silvervurn
2 grass pitches thornliebank.
Thats 28 pitches locally that had 3 games each saturday at 9,11am and 2pm
Thats 168 teams(28x2x3) playing
Thats 1,848 players each saturday pre internet.
The pitches were always mobbed.
They are not even there now
Not now,playing at ‘pits’ or ‘goals
Is around a £10 a head if not more
Little wonder these companies ars valued in £m’s
Daft bairns are playing their digital games,staying indoors and active in other ways outside fitba.
Ta for postin TT
bigrailroadblues
Ye mean Pat (Neil Sedaka) Nevin, Professor of musicology?
Login again….
Stumbled across Leanord v Duran,the way they were going at it I thought it was Round 2,it was Round 13 of 15,unbelievable fight
Celtic Mac 5.31
Aye young fella. Professor of bullshit and selective hearing at hun games. He studied at the University of Souptaking.
Bada
Remember it well. The Brawl in Montreal.
viva los spfl
Huns warned by UEFA, Copland Rd stand will be closed if there’s another racist incident, someone at the Daily Ranger will get bagged for the online headline
bigrailroadblues- that was it
https://videocelts.com/2025/03/blogs/latest-news/sfa-extend-alan-muirs-punishment/
Thanks to whoever linked to the Greenock Telegraph’s tribute to Neilly Mochan’s time at Morton. Now that is what I call football development, Dunipace Juniors, Morton, the Borough, and then of course Celtic FC.
Not sure if Morton were a semi-professional club, were certainly a second division club at various times, first division too. Probably looked down upon now by those who should….but dont….know better
A reminder. A tribute to the memory of Tony Gillespie on Friday 28th March at the Shipbank. Nothing organised, just turn up. Tony turned up so many times at the Shipbank and other venues over the years and I still can’t believe he has gone.
Rest in peace SFTB.
fanadpatriot on 25th March 2025 5:22 pm
Will Dermot burst the bank for Caoimhin Kelleher ☘️🇮🇪🙏
——
Personally, I hope not FD.
Above average height.
Average talent.
B2B- Forest got knocked back with £13 million for him,that’s the end of that one
When it comes to disagreeing with the tenet of your leader, Pablo …
.. I’m on a bit of a roll.
Stuck record time.
14 team league to reduce “jeopardy” (a word everyone seems to be using freely these days)
… and create (cliché alert) “more breathing space” for clubs to blood youngsters.
13 games home and away – 26 games.
Then top seven / bottom seven split sees a further 6 home and away – 12 games.
38 games played.
2 get relegated.
Split based on odd number of teams creates a free week for someone each week (!)
Write into the rules that the teams who are 7th (bottom of top) and 8th (top of bottom) at split are guaranteed to have no fixture on last day of the season …
… as they are less likely to be contenders for title or relegation. (Not foolproof but risk reducing)
Top 2 compete for title
3 to 6 compete for Europe
If Europe is beyond you .. aim for 7th and big pay days (TV, gate) post split.
11 to 14 likely to be fighting relegation so plenty to play for?
What about positions 8, 9 and 10 and the risk of (cliché alert) “meaningless fixtures”.
8th guarantees you seeding for next season’s league cup.
Across 8th, 9th, 10th additional prize money (paid for by top 2) …
… paid to your club for EVERY MINUTE during the league season you play a Scottish teenager.
E.g.
8th gets £20 a minute
9th gets £10 a minute
10th gets £5 a minute
So, put together a good young team who play the game the right way? (The opposite of Livingston) … but can’t quite make top 7 ?
Console yourself with 10,000 minutes of Scottish teenager representation netting you £200k.
Not April,and transfer talk everywhere.Between the winter window,and the excruciating ” Buyout,Takeover” whatever,of the Huns,which will take us up to the Summer transfer window,were it will will start again ,it has become a Media induced,Pishfest.
Think fans on here should ignore the tiresome transfer stories until the window opens.
Or just a tad before.There’s a bunch of good chaps..
😇
BTB,
Very well thought out..
TB- thanks for telling us what to post
Just watching the latter part of the Sweden – Norn game, 5-1 to the Swedes. Only a friendly mind.
Our man Gustav Lagerbielke came on late in the game. Hard to judge against a young Irish team. That said Sweden look a decent oufit so getting game time with them and in Holland is a pretty good level of football.
Queens Park beat Rangers at Ibrox in the Cup. There is always the chance that semi-pro team can beat full time top teams. The history of the FA cup is full of underdogs beating the top teams, Its one of the attractions of football.
We can decide what set up is best for our club and that is not what is better for the collective. I generally feel that the top league is to our advantage is best served by the smallest number, so best for Celtic is 10 team. However, the best for the collective is 16/18. 10 is 36 games, 18 is 36 games.
Champions league new format is more attractive for TV with every round having attractive games as compared to old format group games. TV audiences are higher and every level of club get higher revenues
Horses for courses
only in Scotland I forgot to say
KINGLuBO
——
Have the Belgians not got something even made where the top 2-4 teams go into a cup type round of games to see the league winner?
Or was that just a covid thing
?
AT
Right back at you .
A good post .
TT
There is a top of the table clash in the second tier of Scottish Professional football tonight.
Sshh !!!
Who is going to tell BBC Sport Scotland Online?
bigbhoy
But that is the question. What is the best way forward? Paul67’s retroactive vision of a 10 team league, that is a bit like buying a ticket to see a reformed Oasis, a band whose best days are long behind them,…ye dont do it.
But neither can we replicate the Scotland of the post war years, where we seem to have a never ending assembly line of potential, some of which was never realised, but often was. Lot of which was down to the individual efforts of the players themselves, Jimmy Johnstone being the greatest example who practised practised practised….with a wall in front of him. The demographics are different now, schools football undermined, and the role of amateur clubs, (Dunipace, Sauchie etc) lessened in favour of Academies which, as TBB has shown, in terms of successful progress, are a road to ‘failure’ and disillusion. The mid 1970s Premier League, benefited from what had gone before, but it has failed to replicate the largely amateur ethos of bygone days, Mochan, Hansen, Stuart Kennedy (Bothkennar I think) in terms of producing players who can play at a professional level. Celtic FC, to the best of my knowledge, have never, ever, in recent times offered a alternative to the present, and lets be honest here, Old Firm model. Auldheid has his ideas, incorporating the concept of the geographical, in that all parts of Scotland should offer an opportunity to play in a top league, not some artificial ’10’, no, but maybe 18 clubs, not a lot between Falkirk, Ayr, and Ross County these days. Time to recognise that fact and think seriously about where we, not just Celtic, are going. Paul67 has nothing to offer on that front, on the development of football and footballers in Scotland absolutely nothing, it is time all on here recognise that, as a fact.
The BBC Football home page tonight has links to 4th tier and NON-LEAGUE football matches in England.
BBC Sport Scotland Online are responsible for promoting Scottish football articles to the main page.
Perhaps they were exhausted from ..
– moving the bad news R2ngers story so far down the list you’re more likely to miss it on a mobile device
AND
– Ensuring R2ngers didn’t get a mention in the Joey Barton story (ex QPR and Man City don’t you know)
.. and so went home for a wee lie down.
Protest by Fans against Criminalization
1.15 Saturday
https://x.com/JeanFind/status/1904255208965968218?s=08
HH
I see Mr Cavanagh is allegedly back in Glasgow to do,as Jackson likes to cal it” Rubber stamping”.I remember it used to be called”Tyre kicking”.
Oh and Bada,you are very welcome.That’s just the kind of guy I am.
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/michael-oleary-ryanair-restaurant-extra-charge-luvida-b2721151.html
So Muir got his fingers rapped for blatant cheating . Collum pumps his gums to look like he is in control . . And meanwhile Celtic get Aitken on var for Saturday v hearts .
Palestine into World Cup qualifiers.
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1904656937691607082
Good morning , was going to read back but there were no posts to read.
Anyway , is Kasper likely to be out long term ?
League can still be won before the split , R2ngers have a habit of slipping up after a dood result.
# Good