yuddie

We should be fielding teams that are 24 years old on average, max 25 imo. A team good enough to compete now and will get better in years to come (Arsenal down south). Last season we were fielding XI's that were pushing 30. No one in European football is looking at a team in Scotland choc full of 30 year olds who finished runners up and thinking 'I might take a punt on him you know'. Hence why no decent bids came in for Lundstram or Barisic and we've got players leaving for free en masse. To the point about letting Kent and Morelos go for nothing - that's poor decision making from the board, by all accounts we had offers. We probably got those offers because those two players were of a good age to sign. Football at the top level is trending younger recently, just look at the premier league. But aye, let's bring in 33 year old bosmans instead of looking at players in their early 20's for our midfield. Like a Barron.

Why is it common sense? And I'm not being deliberately obtuse either - it's just that on the face of it we're in a 2 team league where we generate 4x the revenue of 3rd place in the table. If we're bringing in older heads with winning experience then I'd get it. Is it a very Scottish thing (Rangers exc) to do to bring in a 35 year old player who's done at the top level but can do a turn in Scotland?

There's a wider point about our teams legs being shot too - which is why I think we need younger and mobile players.

Got to disagree lads sorry. If the trading model is to be a thing then our squad age needs to come down by a few years. And so does our XI. Having a defence that at points was 30+ and also underperforming is a recipe for disaster financially. We're not Madrid who have a core of 30+ year olds who lead them to the UCL final every season. Even then they've been aggressive with blooding young players like Camavinga, Vini Jr, Bellingham etc.

That's the 'experience' we need btw. 50+ caps. League winner. European experience.

I agree with the sentiment but I think he got Norwich's POTY this season. Although so did Barton before he came up, ha.

More youth than experience for me, our squad and XI's through the season were too old. Especially if the trading model is to be a thing. But aye, Balogun and Butland can be the grey hair in the team.

Tbf, half tounge in cheek I'd enquire about Harry Souttar. Him and Cordoba would be decent depth at LCB.

We all said the same thing last season with the proviso that he's 4th/5th choice. Turns out he wasn't. I still hold that view now, if we're balls deep into the Xmas fixture list and he's propping up our defence my head will explode. Like the guy, good backup but I hope he's not going to be a key player.

Seconded, dio for me. The only player willing to take it in tight spaces and then make it work.

This is how I'm getting over this season haha

Looks like our potential opponents have been finalised. This twitter accounts sums it up better than I ever could: Hopefully Clement gets backed and we target this, it could shape his tenure for the medium term. Key Takeaways: No Benfica, Seeded and we find out both opponents before the QR3 game. Also, given how repetitive our draws seem to be you can bet your house on us getting USG at some point. What you reckon? We need to cash in with the new format whilst our coefficient is strong. We shouldn't fear anyone in those pots imo - if we get ibrox in the second leg I fancy us to make it. Cheers.

In all seriousness, we've had operating profit in the last 2 set of accounts despite the shite recruitment of recent seasons. The majority of clubs down south are making losses every season - I read that Abramovich was loaning Chelsea 800k a week just to cover losses. If we break even most seasons whilst driving revenue then we're in a good place imo. Admin 2 is still a way off yet I think.

Good win in the SFA Cup final to round off a decent season albeit with the disappointment of losing the league whilst being in the driving seat. Screamer from McLauchlan. Some good young talent at the club which is encouraging for the future of the team. Hopefully the club back Jo and try and do well in the UCL, hopefully it can propel them to a treble they should've had this season.

Aye mate maybe it's been lost in translation. I know Tevez had something similar at Utd but that was years ago. The fee seems accurate, about 650k in gbp. Decent bit of business.

800k for 80% of his economic rights, not sure what that entails. Transfermarkt have him down as 800k euros so it seems to check out. https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/jefte/transfers/spieler/851595

Aye that's fair, although we've tried to force a change of the governance of the game in Scotland before and no one listened. Maybe if we were more dominant they'd listen.

It is true mate because they're jobsworths and incompetent. We can't trust them to make a good decision so why give them the option to make a bad one? For me it's not enough on Hart to affect his ability to catch the ball in the first place and as you say, Taylor is all over Raskin. We can't control the refereeing practice in this country, especially when we were a binfire coming up the leagues and Celtic had free reign to influence the game in Scotland. We just have to be better, and if we are and maintain that standard THEN we can go to town on the governance of the game in Scotland. Getting pumped every OF and wanting to burn the SFA down does us no favours in terms of credibility.

It wouldn't be if the other side of Glasgow weren't saying the exact same thing. On Saturday we were dreadful at creating chances - and when we did we fluffed our lines or gave the jobsworths in the booth a choice to make. When we were pumping them left and right under Gerrard there wasn't this meltdown about the refereeing - we were just better and they couldn't live with us. I'd rather us pursue that than pursue better refereeing standards because that's what we can control. I get that the refs are scared stiff of going against Celtic, I just want a team to rise above that and take it out of their hands. That's not to say it should be accepted, hopefully behind the scenes the board are in dialogue with whoever matters.

Meh, they've had a lot of duds to go with their hits.

Oh aye, Collum is by far and away the worst official I've ever seen ref a game. Jobs for the boys isn't it, they're shit scared of any outside influence because they'll know that the SFA will be show up to be sub-standard.

You put the clappers on that!

Lads can we move on, the refs are shite we know that. Cba with the paranoia that follows OF games.

We've got a bigger wage bill than Atalanta who've just won the uel and have been ucl regulars recently. In the grand scheme of European football, we compare well enough in revenue imo..the board have just severely mismanaged recruitment in recent years. We haven't got value for our signings for years. Bennett has spoken about being more aggressive in the market and implementing the trading model - we're seeing the beginnings of that with the Cortés, Diomande and Jefte deals. Get that 'pillar' right and we'll crack 100m+ in revenue - it'll take time though.

Fluminense podcast saying we signed him for 800k. Koppen seems to know what he's doing.