Makes a lot of sense, he was one of the few players in that St Johnstone squad to come out of the season with any sort of credit and lower-end Premiership is probably his level. Won't need to move house, either.
Printable View
100% not getting guaranteed group stage has impacted players we can attract this early on which is one of the most frustrating aspects on Aberdeen winning the cup. I genuinely think we had a chance of getting players like Stuart Armstrong if we’d got the groups. Players like this Simmons might have been more likely to choose us over Bolton too. Not to drag up old ground but it’s been really disappointing we haven’t been able to secure some really excellent signings early on which I’m sure we could have if we had group stage football
Such is life
Don't think any are in panic mode. Think it's more just some of our key players from last season are yet to be confirmed. If they don't come back that does leave us a significant amount of work to do and that's only to be as good as last season. We need to try and improve on last season as that really is the key from pulling away from the rest. No team yet has been able to sustain 3rd for a couple of seasons.
Has it though? Would we really be splashing cash on players who would be with us beyond next season. What if we don’t qualify for Europe next season? Then we have expensive players on our books or a bloated squad.
I doubt that our transfer budget has been impacted too much. Our bread and butter is the league and that’s the squad quality that we need to plan for.
Maybe as an outlay, but if you are spending high transfer fees, that comes with high wages. Say we get someone for three years, pay a large transfer fee then fail to make Euro football for the following 2 seasons. That’s not a sustainable model.
We need to progressively improve, year on year, in the league. The Euro places, and the prize that comes with it, is a bonus and will help us to progressively improve faster.
I still find it slightly baffling that, unless Bolton were offering significantly more money than us, someone would choose that level over potential European football? Even with the size of the job ahead of us to get group stage football, even 2 or 3 ties is more than he's going to get at Bolton.
And if not for the cup draws we could well have been looking at 2 or 3 Hampden trips last season as well.
What bit of Hibs not getting guaranteed group stages was Hibs issue? The club did everything it could did it not.
If we weren't planning for not making it right up to that last penalty then we wouldn't be doing our job.
Like it or not at our current level, Europe or not, we are going to get knocked back by players at the level we want to be, purely because of money. That is life in the world of Scottish football.
At no point did I say it was Hibs issue. Not blaming the club one bit.
Just a **** year for Celtic not to win the cup
Europe groups stages would have made a huge difference especially in attracting players who we may now struggle to get. Just a fact really but no fault of the club
I think some overplay this bit about European football. It may have been a wee bit different this year if we had European football to Christmas. However, the Yam and Aberdeen have had European games to Christmas over the last few years and have not really been shopping for players in a different market to us.
I tend to think it's the bread and butter trips each year to the likes of Livingston, Falkirk, Dingwall over the years that tend to put some players coming up to play in Scotland.
Genuinely think Triantis signing would have been done early if we’d made the groups. We’d have more cash, he’d get group stage football in run up to a World Cup. Feel there would have been other players seeing us as a good option with a chance to move up the ladder.
I love Hibs, and I love Edinburgh and wouldn't want to be anywhere else if someone offered me Bolton/Plymouth/Blackpool and the same money.
But I think a lot of us are probably entirely over estimating the draw playing a couple of qualifiers is for the vast majority of English footballers. For someone like Xavier Simons he's probably never even contemplated Scotland as a career destination at any point until this summer. He probably knows next to zero about what it's like up here, it would be seen as a step down from his perspective.
Agree as ***** as it is I would say the majority of English players would value a big club in League 1 over Hibs. I think if we had guaranteed Europe it could definitely sway it our way. However, players aren't gonna bank on us winning 2 likely unseeded ties to get this.
Agree.
This is where I have difficulty understanding why we would have a better chance of getting Triantis even if we had European games to Christmas. We would have a ceiling on what we can afford and within the constraints of what we are paying other players. I expect we have offered Triantis the most we can afford.
If we had a guaranteed amount of say 10 European games this season, we cannot give players 4 year contracts based on this. What if we don't qualify for Europe next season. Then we would be stretched financially.
I get that this may seem a bit unambitious, but the club has to be sustainable in the long term. The club strategy should be to try and sign and develop players, to then sell on at a profit. European football is not the panacea to all our ambitions.
I tend to feel European football for clubs such as ourselves, Aberdeen & the Yam is more exciting for the supporters. Don't really see it as the crucial thing in potential players signing for us.
Being a Londoner and speaking about how close his family was and how they liked to go and watch his younger brother play who’s at Fulham I wonder was Bolton a better option because of less travelling too , apart from the extra on his deal maybe that was a small incentive in McGrath joining us too .
Would Hibs kindly, with all due respect, **** off with the constant app notifications about Father's Day.
Rocky Bushiri-related let downs on a daily basis.
European football definitely allows people to prove themselves at a higher level though. If they have a couple of good games playing at the higher level the group stages provides they could definitely earn themselves a bigger move. I think alot of teams are still fairly hesitant to shop in Scotland as then general standard of the league is still pretty low.
Get excited every time my phone pings only to be told about something or other we were told about 3 days ago.
Missed the boat by not getting one of the new kits out for fathers day. I'd imagine quite a few Hearts, Dons, Celtic and Rangers supporting dad's will be sporting new shirts this Sunday.
Yeah thats a really good post.
Fully agree when it's put like that.
We put the green tinted specs on and say why the **** would you not want to move to Edinburgh, but the reality is that for most players it's probably more like "why the **** would I move to Edinburgh?"
Have a feeling we’ll hear an announcement today. Absolute no info just a hunch