How would the OF do in England?

[Danny 0]

This has been a question we've pondered for some considerable time. How would Rangers and Celtic actually do in England, be it the Championship or the EPL.

 

Well, for the first time, we seem to have a very, very crude guide.

 

A Middlesbrough side mostly made up of some of the best of former Rangers and Celtic: Boyd, Robson, Flood, McManus, Aliadiere, Killen, Thomson and McDonald is struggling in the Championship 5th from bottom.

 

Is this some indication of how either OF team would actually do in that division?

[MoodyBlue 0]

right now, we would be in bottom third of EPL.

 

But if we were in there all manner of things would change and financially we'd be able to rip this current squad apart and bring in genuine quality players.

[Zappa 0]

A Middlesbrough side mostly made up of some of the best of former Rangers and Celtic: Boyd, Robson, Flood, McManus, Aliadiere, Killen, Thomson and McDonald is struggling in the Championship 5th from bottom.

 

Is this some indication of how either OF team would actually do in that division?

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Unfortunately, I think it is an indication. A lot of Rangers and Celtic fans think we could compete down there immediately, but I think we'd struggle initially... big time! Only after a few seasons of the extra cash & getting the team strengthened with quality would we have a good shout.

 

Too early to say how Boro's season will go though btw. I seem to remember us having a pretty ropey start to last season ourselves! What was it again? 3 draws from the first 5 or 6 games? 6 points dropped? We didn't get beat right enough!

[Zappa 0]

FWIW, I doubt there's any chance whatsoever of us ever playing in an English league. More chance of us signing Lionel Messe or David Villa.

[Gribz 956]

I dont think we would struggle as much as some think. We regularly play Premier League teams in pre season friendlies and come out on top albeit a friendly. But the likes of Blackburn, Sunderland and Fulham wouldnt scare me at all right now, so the teams worse than them like Stoke, West Ham, West Brom and Wigan would pose even less of a threat IMO.

 

We might get stream rolled by the likes of Arsenal and Man U (tomorrow will give a good indication), and we would probably lose the odd game at Anfield, Goodison and White Hart Lane.

 

The Championship might even be a more difficult league than the Premier League in some cases. the football is uglier and its a tough division to get out of it. So often in recent seasons we have seen teams come up from that league and hold their own in the top flight.

 

I dont think Middlesboro have signed the best of the OF at all, if anything the players mentioned were actually poorer players from the OF IMO.

[Zappa 0]

I dont think we would struggle as much as some think. We regularly play Premier League teams in pre season friendlies and come out on top albeit a friendly. But the likes of Blackburn, Sunderland and Fulham wouldnt scare me at all right now, so the teams worse than them like Stoke, West Ham, West Brom and Wigan would pose even less of a threat IMO.

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Depends how you look at it because those poorer sides often take points off the far classier top 4/top 6 sides, so they're no pushover by any means, especially when they've been buying better quality players than us. Like I said, it wouldn't be so bad after we've had some time down there collecting the sort of cash they get for TV deals etc, but initially I really do think we'd struggle. We struggle away from home & sometimes even at home against sides like Hamilton, St.Mirren, Motherwell etc etc FFS.

[Bluedell 5,716]

It's pointless to look at our current side and how they would fare if we went down south, because our budget would be significantly increased if we did and much of the team would be replaced.

 

How would Liverpool get on if they were playing in the SPL next season? They'd lose a whole load of players who woudn't play here and their budget would be significantly decreased, and there's no guarantee that they'd win the league.

[maineflyer 0]

The fact is there's no basis for a meaningful comparison. The only way to know anything would be for Rangers to play in the EPL for a few seasons. You'll note I refuse to acknowledge the OF term in this debate - ideally we would stop using it altogether.

[bmck 117]

Impossible to say. The players playing for Middlesborough were the average/core players, alongside which better players from abroad etc make the difference. More to the point, if we went to the EPL it wouldn't matter what like our sides were - the size of the club would quickly push us into the top half, as with a bigger budget we could sign a higher callibre of player, as we've done with bigger budgets in the past.

[andy steel 0]

Danny is plainly meaning the team we have just now; and that team would get walloped!