Gerrard has more points this season - at the same stage - than the last three times we won the league.

This is something I've been saying a lot.
Gerrard and the team have been harshly judged here, almost all title winning teams have poor spells like this but the fact Celtic are so consistent this season makes it look worse.

They have a striker that out scores our main striker with eight extra goals and two midfielders who are one or two off what our main striker has that is our main problem, we do not covert the chances we make.

We need better strikers and midfielders who can chip in as well or we will always be trailing them Gerrard instead bought a load of wingers he does not play.
 
The gap between ourselves and the scum with the rest of the league is as big as it’s ever been in my time as a supporter.

I don’t see it decreasing either, quite the opposite.
 
See the doom merchants focusing on the smaller teams but totally neglect the fact that we are facing a Celtic team far better than anything we have seen in recent times that has double the budget we do.

Yet, head to head with them it's literally even over this season and last. In the league we've played 6, won 3 and lost 3.

The budget is a moot point when the points we're dropping and let slip are to teams with a budget meager in comparison to ours.

We're losing the league because we're dropping points against the dross, not them.
 
Who got better? Teams like Livingston who simply have to put in a plastic pitch and 11 men behind the ball to get into the top 6?

Aye very good. The overall quality has decreased significantly.

Aberdeen (6th at this stage in 2009)
Motherwell (7th at this stage in 2009)
Kilmarnock (9th at this stage in 2009)
 
Losing to Hearts after drawing there earlier in the season? dropping 4 points to Aberdeen already after losses and draws to them last season suggests nothing learned, 4 wins in 10 against Kilmarnock including another defeat at Rugby Park after 2 there last season? To
me this doesn’t really paint a good picture of a management team learning from their mistakes.

In one of Walter's 3 in a row seasons we didn't win at either Tynecastle or Pittodrie in the same season.

We also drew 3 games in a row 0-0.

These things happen
 
This is true but it's also harsh to be over critical when they're rarely dropping points.
Of course we need to aim to be like that though.

I agree mate, it is harsh. It's also sadly what league winning teams need to be doing.

I imagine if you look back over the last 9 years we probably have more points at this stage than most of the Celtic teams in that time did. But I don't think it's any coincidence that they are doing so much better this season either; they are likely playing so well BECAUSE we pushed them so hard in the first 6 months, because that's what you need to do as a league winning team, you need to rise to and best the level of opposition.

It doesn't matter what it looked like in previous years, if we want to be successful we need to beat what we're up against now.
 
How many points could we have been if it wasn't for some terrible refereeing decisions? Yes we've not played great since the break but the Morelos goal on Wednesday should have seen us get 3 points
Add on the 2 from Shitoddrie when denied a stonewall pen ! But our form since returning is still honking but these factors have to be included
 
They are miles ahead of the rest, including us, in every single area, department . Be it development, scouting, PR, whatever!
I bought into what I was told, they'll fold like a pack of cards, etc, etc! Well they haven't, we have.
I'm angry and I'm hurting. Unfortunately it appears that those who can change what has become the status quo aren't.
There's lies, damn lies and statistics!
 
Who got better? Teams like Livingston who simply have to put in a plastic pitch and 11 men behind the ball to get into the top 6?

Aye very good. The overall quality has decreased significantly.

Aberdeen, Hibs, Motherwell and Kilmarnock are significantly better and tougher to beat than when we last won the league.

Hearts are significantly worse.

Hamilton, St Johnstone, Livingston, St Mirren, Ross County all on a par with the standard of the rest of the teams then.

The likes of Edouard, Ajer, Forster, Julien, McGregor are significantly better than some of the tripe celtic had in their team back then when they had Glenn loovens, majstorovic, mulgrew, samaras, stokes etc
 
What can't be argued is the current League Table reflects our current financial position (i.e. comfortably behind them but substantially ahead of Aberdeen).

We are handi-capped straight away which makes a league title difficult though not impossible.

The saving grace has been Europe (the Board will understandably view the last two efforts as good as a trophy win).

How we compete with them financially is the main issue now, not the management team (who are actually doing better than I expected for a rookie group).
 
The problem is no matter how many points we have they have more.
Teams just don't try against them the way they do against us.
Look at Hearts as an example ,ran themselves in to the ground against us . Never bothered their arses against them.
 
Unfortunately you cannot polish points any more than you can polish progress at the end of the season. None of us should need reminding that it is an increasingly long time since we won a top flight trophy and that is my own measure of progress.
 
Poorer standard of opposition has to be taken into account.

Which is why Celtic have even more points than the stats in the OP too.

We're better than we were last season. There's been improvement on our part reaching the LCF, having more poits in the league, scoring more goals and conceding less as well as a clear improvement in our European results.

It's been a horrific run of games in the last 10 days or so but it's a blip on what has been an improved season.

We need Celtic to stumble. We'll not win the league until that happens.
 
They are miles ahead of the rest, including us, in every single area, department . Be it development, scouting, PR, whatever!
I bought into what I was told, they'll fold like a pack of cards, etc, etc! Well they haven't, we have.
I'm angry and I'm hurting. Unfortunately it appears that those who can change what has become the status quo aren't.
There's lies, damn lies and statistics!
Don't agree. The only player who has been a success that Lennon bought is the centre half and the goalie on loan. We win at most levels beneath the first team so that department are doing their job. I'm with you on PR.
 
Unfortunately you cannot polish points any more than you can polish progress at the end of the season. None of us should need reminding that it is an increasingly long time since we won a top flight trophy and that is my own measure of progress.

True but it's not black and white. You have to have the gradual improvements to reach that eventual goal. There is no magic swich which suddenly makes it all work.
 
They are miles ahead of the rest, including us, in every single area, department . Be it development, scouting, PR, whatever!
I bought into what I was told, they'll fold like a pack of cards, etc, etc! Well they haven't, we have.
I'm angry and I'm hurting. Unfortunately it appears that those who can change what has become the status quo aren't.
There's lies, damn lies and statistics!

We haven't folded at all. We've had a few horrific results in an otherwise improvement on last year.

Celtic will collapse at one point just as we did (despite being miles ahead of them in every department) in 1997/98.
 
Teams back then were more competitive against us and them this is not the case now, the standard of player in Scotland now is very poor.
They alsdi
Who got better? Teams like Livingston who simply have to put in a plastic pitch and 11 men behind the ball to get into the top 6?

Aye very good. The overall quality has decreased significantly.
While the quality has decreased, they have counteracted that by sitting in and defending like their life depends on it. Teams are harder to score against than they were.
 
3 more wins, a cup final appearence and yet more progression in Europe including wins AND remaining unbeaten against Feyenoord and Porto over 4 games.

Last three weeks doesn't alter that fact. It's been a horrible 3 weeks but I'm not going to sit here and kid myself that we're not learning anything as a team.

We've scored more goals, conceded less goals, gained more points.

Ah yes but I heard on Clyde One and BBC Scotland that none of that matters and only finishing first in the league matters!

Chris Sutton said "how many trophies have you won" so instead of rebuilding and carefully trying to get the most out of our limited funds we should rip it all up and start again.

If people stopped listening to mentally challengeds in the Scottish media (which is basically set up by Rangers haters, for Rangers haters) and actually looked for the progress that we've made then they'd see that.

You've got to hope that stuff like this does not filter through to the board, the management, or our squad because I would say that the obsession with them could become a bit of a weakness that forces rash decisions that end up hurting us long term.

"The quality of the other 10 has changed, they are worse now".

Surely if that's a factor then our ongoing recovery from the events of 2012 needs to be a factor also?

We had 5 entire seasons without European football before getting bumped out by some mob from Luxembourg on our return. 2 seasons later we are beating Feyenoord and Porto at Ibrox.

Though I heard from John Hartson on TV that only trophies matter so f*ck it, i guess.

Let's demand that Gerrard be fired and start over because the mentally challenged media has us so utterly convinced anything less than winning the league is failure that we don't see or appreciate the incremental improvements being made now that will lead to our success in the future.
 
Teams back then were more competitive against us and them this is not the case now, the standard of player in Scotland now is very poor.

Disagree. They were nearly all totally broke and desperately selling off players to keep the banks from the door from the late 90s onwards.
 
Aberdeen, Hibs, Motherwell and Kilmarnock are significantly better and tougher to beat than when we last won the league.

Hearts are significantly worse.

Hamilton, St Johnstone, Livingston, St Mirren, Ross County all on a par with the standard of the rest of the teams then.

The likes of Edouard, Ajer, Forster, Julien, McGregor are significantly better than some of the tripe celtic had in their team back then when they had Glenn loovens, majstorovic, mulgrew, samaras, stokes etc

Celtic were winning the league with a back four of Telfer, Caldwell, McManus and Naylor. A midfield of a past it Lennon, Hartley, Nakamura and McGeady and a front two of Vennegoor of Hesselink and Scott fúcking McDonald.

This current Celtic team would wipe the floor with that mob.
 
Disagree. They were nearly all totally broke and desperately selling off players to keep the banks from the door from the late 90s onwards.

Now we have loan player as clubs cant afford to spend money and the clubs now are only afloat since we came back as they were struggling.
you know we are struggling when we have to go back in time to suggest we could possibly win leagues with our current form.
 
Lessons have clearly been learned.

Otherwise we wouldn't be 9 points better off same stage last season.

I'd love to find all those threads when Gerrard took over about how this was a 5 year project.

Anyone who doesn't think there has been improvement in the last 18 months needs sectioned for their own mental sanity.
 
And yet we're still in a pretty poor position considering. Added to that, we're really struggling at the moment and that isn't going to bode well. It'll be where we end up at the end of the season that counts.
 
Ultimately the only thing that matters is that when we got to the second half of the season we capitulated at the same stage once again. That’s the only bit that counts, and it’s particularly disappointing when you look at the sides we’ve folded to.

Someone said Aberdeen and Hearts are the two sides who have went farthest backwards this season in terms of points, well isn’t it ridiculous that those are two of the sides that have effectively ended our title challenge (I’m not even sure you can call it a real challenge in early February). We’re 9 points better off yet the timing of the collapse suggests the exactly the same issue is present in terms of mentality and being able to keep the heads after new year when the pressure goes up a notch.
 
They are miles ahead of the rest, including us, in every single area, department . Be it development, scouting, PR, whatever!
I bought into what I was told, they'll fold like a pack of cards, etc, etc! Well they haven't, we have.
I'm angry and I'm hurting. Unfortunately it appears that those who can change what has become the status quo aren't.
There's lies, damn lies and statistics!

It's true though. They will inevitably screw things up. Might be bad signings down the line, a dodgy manager, their board deciding they don't need to invest so much to win the league, bad luck, loss of form. Nothing lasts forever.

We just have to make sure we are there to take advantage when they do stumble. It's just not this season.

We are 19 points clear of 3rd place but still 10 points behind 1st place.
Season before last we finished 3rd.

We are improving but it's going to take time.
The world doesn't end if they win 10 in a row.
We just need to keep improving ourselves bit by bit so that when the opportunity comes we are able to take it.
 
I'd love to find all those threads when Gerrard took over about how this was a 5 year project.

Anyone who doesn't think there has been improvement in the last 18 months needs sectioned for their own mental sanity.

Of course there has been improvement, even a blind man would see that. The FF world however is knee jerk to everything that happens and you are as good or as bad as your last 90 mins.
 
3 more wins, a cup final appearence and yet more progression in Europe including wins AND remaining unbeaten against Feyenoord and Porto over 4 games.

Last three weeks doesn't alter that fact. It's been a horrible 3 weeks but I'm not going to sit here and kid myself that we're not learning anything as a team.

We've scored more goals, conceded less goals, gained more points.

Salient points Dunc, all too easily lost on those who only see Celtic ahead of us.

But . . . they are ahead of us, significantly so, and we've been dreadful since the new year and it doesn't appear to be abating.

There are big questions being asked of him now and rightly so. He can't keep on hoping his plan A will suddenly click into gear again, he needs to enforce changes himself - that's what he's there for.

I always think this is when you really see what managers are made of - how they respond to crises.

If he can get us back to our best again - and it needs to begin tomorrow - maybe claw back a bit of ground on Celtic and, it has to be said, win the Scottish Cup for us, this current bad patch will be just that - a bad patch.

If he doesn't though, well . . .
 
How many points did the mentally challengeds have after 25 games last season?

That's a genuine question that I don't know the answer to by the way. Just curious.

EDIT: Just found out the info myself there. They had 57 points after 25 games last season.

I know that counts for hee haw in the grand scheme of things, but we're on course (potentially) to finish on a points total that would've been enough to secure the league title as recent as last season. Think it shows a decent level of progress.
 
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Points totals are irrelevant. Walter's side usually always found a way to win when it really matters, this side never do.
 
We haven't folded at all. We've had a few horrific results in an otherwise improvement on last year.

Celtic will collapse at one point just as we did (despite being miles ahead of them in every department) in 1997/98.
I hope so brother. I feel a bit better. I'm a bit of a cold fish at times, but this hurts.
 
Now we have loan player as clubs cant afford to spend money and the clubs now are only afloat since we came back as they were struggling.
you know we are struggling when we have to go back in time to suggest we could possibly win leagues with our current form.

No the SPFL clubs are afloat because they largely have now paid their debts off and operate on a sustainable basis that has allowed the larger teams like Hibs and Aberdeen to start paying transfer fees again.
 
Lies, damn lies and statistics.

Unfortunately in the microcosm that is Glasgow, you can't detach Rangers from what Celtic are doing.

We could end up with, I don't know, 15 more points than we had last season. But if we're still finishing 9 or 10 points behind Celtic, then you'd be hard pushed to call that progress.

Of course the most galling thing is that we've blown it of our own doing. We'd put ourselves in a fantastic position and then surrendered it so meekly. So pathetically.

No amount of stastical spin can dull the fact that we've went from putting our noses infront in the title race to pathetically surrendering it within 6 games. That's astonishing in its ineptitude.
 
Different times....little relevance.
They don't drop points as they have strength and depth....they r who we have to beat....not teams from last decade
 
And the scum have 10 more.

We need to be keeping pace with them, not past Rangers teams.
Very difficult given their consistency. We have been poor since the break, there's no getting away from that but there's has been a marked improvement this season, a fact that has been lost in the current meltdown, which is just the way it is at our club. There's no middle ground...it's all sugar or all shite.
 
Lies, damn lies and statistics.

Unfortunately in the microcosm that is Glasgow, you can't detach Rangers from what Celtic are doing.

We could end up with, I don't know, 15 more points than we had last season. But if we're still finishing 9 or 10 points behind Celtic, then you'd be hard pushed to call that progress.

Of course the most galling thing is that we've blown it of our own doing. We'd put ourselves in a fantastic position and then surrendered it so meekly. So pathetically.

No amount of stastical spin can dull the fact that we've went from putting our noses infront in the title race to pathetically surrendering it within 6 games. That's astonishing in its ineptitude.

Is Gerrard getting critcised here for improving us?

It's starting to feel like he'd have less grief if we were still a bit away from them.

The first stage was to beat them at Ibrox and show we could compete and get ourselves back to at least 2nd last year (given we were third the year before he got the job)

After that, we had to prove we could go one better and beat them at The Piggery and continue our improvement which, when you look at getting through the LC semi, improving our points total and getting through our EL group this year has undoubtably been the case.

The next stage is to continue that and get even closer to them and continue to put pressure on them so that when they do come a cropper we can pounce on that.

It's all part of us getting there whether it happens tomorrow, in May or next year.

We can only continue to improve and we're doing that despite the horrible feeling of the last few dropped points.

Like City last year, even if they do win the league with a record poitns total this season, they won't be able to replicate it forever and as we continue to improve, we will get over the line.
 
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No the SPFL clubs are afloat because they largely have now paid their debts off and operate on a sustainable basis that has allowed the larger teams like Hibs and Aberdeen to start paying transfer fees again.

Can you show me an example of all these club their current debt structures as I'd be very interested to see where you got this information from?
 
The season before Gerrard took over, they won the league with 82 points and won just 24 of their 38 games. They dropped 32 points, compared to just 8 so far this season. It has not therefore, just been a case of coming from a mile back and closing the gap he inherited. He's been expected to close that gap and surpass it by perhaps another 20 points, while being outspent in the transfer market and on wages. Second will never be good enough for Rangers, but a bit of perspective is required.
 
Is Gerrard getting critcised here for improving us?

It's starting to feel like he'd have less grief if we were still a bit away from them.

The first stage was to beat them at Ibrox and show we could compete and get ourselves back to at least 2nd last year (given we were third the year before he got the job)

After that, we had to prove we could go one better and beat them at The Piggery and continue our improvement which, when you look at getting through the LC semi, improving our points total and getting through our EL group this year has undoubtably been the case.

The next stage is to continue that and get even closer to them and continue to put pressure on them so that when they do come a cropped we can pounce on that.

It's all part of us getting there whether it happens tomorrow, in May or next year.

We can only continue to improve and we're doing that despite the horrible feeling of the last few dropped points.

Like City last year, even if they do win the league with a record poitns total this season, they won't be able to replicate it forever and as we continue to improve, we will get over the line.

There's no doubting the progress.

I think we could have maybe accepted it to some degree had it just been say the Hearts defeat and the dropped points against Aberdeen, but once you add in Kilmarnock and the fact we've laboured to wins in all the other matches since the break we can see that the recent trend isn't good and there aren't many encouraging signs that it's about to significantly improve.

Given where we were after December 29th, we had every reason to expect that we would push the Yahoos all the way this season.

This sudden collapse has caught us all by surprise and is a real concern.

What is he going to do about it?

Commeth the hour, commeth the man.
 
Is Gerrard getting critcised here for improving us?

It's starting to feel like he'd have less grief if we were still a bit away from them.

The first stage was to beat them at Ibrox and show we could compete and get ourselves back to at least 2nd last year (given we were third the year before he got the job)

After that, we had to prove we could go one better and beat them at The Piggery and continue our improvement which, when you look at getting through the LC semi, improving our points total and getting through our EL group this year has undoubtably been the case.

The next stage is to continue that and get even closer to them and continue to put pressure on them so that when they do come a cropped we can pounce on that.

It's all part of us getting there whether it happens tomorrow, in May or next year.

We can only continue to improve and we're doing that despite the horrible feeling of the last few dropped points.

Like City last year, even if they do win the league with a record poitns total this season, they won't be able to replicate it forever and as we continue to improve, we will get over the line.

He may well have got less grief if we were still a bit further away from them. Because then it would look like we were on a natural, logical path of progress.

But what we've had is a team that looked like it could win the title utterly collapse. Cave in. Disintegrate. Capitulate. And nobody knows why, least of all our manager. The anger stems from that - we contrived to gift wrap Celtic the title within a handful of games of going and beating them in their own midden.

Nobody is capable of explaining it, rationalising it. The only rational thing we can deduce from it is that we've done exactly what we did last January/February, so the blame must surely lie with the football management side of things.
 
He may well have got less grief if we were still a bit further away from them. Because then it would look like we were on a natural, logical path of progress.

But what we've had is a team that looked like it could win the title utterly collapse. Cave in. Disintegrate. Capitulate. And nobody knows why, least of all our manager. The anger stems from that - we contrived to gift wrap Celtic the title within a handful of games of going and beating them in their own midden.

Nobody is capable of explaining it, rationalising it. The only rational thing we can deduce from it is that we've done exactly what we did last January/February, so the blame must surely lie with the football management side of things.

Or maybe the players just aren't quite good enough yet.

There may be no magic wand that does what is required during the break and it's simply that we need better player to add to the improvement in the squad we've seen.

It's a blip as things stand at the moment and just because we had a bad results in January last year doesn't confirm there's blame more than us "not being good enough" yet.
 
That's all well and good but the fact is we might have had less points but we went on to win the league .can you honestly see it happening.
 
They are miles ahead of the rest, including us, in every single area, department . Be it development, scouting, PR, whatever!
I bought into what I was told, they'll fold like a pack of cards, etc, etc! Well they haven't, we have.
I'm angry and I'm hurting. Unfortunately it appears that those who can change what has become the status quo aren't.
There's lies, damn lies and statistics!
If anyone had folded it has been us two seasons in a row
 
Means not a thing without the status of the other teams competing at the same point.

we are 10 points behind the league leaders at this stage in the 2019/20 season.
 
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