I agree, especially the lower you go down the table, the coefficients are all bunched up, making the the differences come down to a good season or two. However:



Definitely add the leagues of Greece, Switerland, Denmark and even Romania and Austria there... all of these are better than the SPL. You can argue that Celtic is better than better than Steaua or Viktoria Plzen, but if you compare the likes of Aberdeen to Astra Giurgiu or Sparta Prague, it becomes clear that these other leagues have better competition to offer. Unlike the SPL, pretty much every league in the top 20 has at least 2-3 teams that always make it to the EL groups and put up a fight there. Scottland has only Celtic, and they get usually worse results than the top teams of the other countries. Out of the top 20, I only have doubts on the Ekstraklasa and the HNL being over all better than the SPL.

In any case, I think this is bound to get worse for Scottland. The leagues of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Cyprus and Israel have been improving a lot lately thanks to rich owners injecting oney into the club. Lots of players in Segunda here in Spain are going to play in mid/low table clubs there now, because they are offered wages much better than the ones they get here. Maccabi and Happoel Beersheva or whatever already proved their worth last season; Astana even made it to the CL and fellow kazakh rival Kairat is improving and been close to the EL groups several times; Qarabag, Gabala and Inter Baku are all becoming EL regulars now for Azerbaijan; and Cyprus has had so many teams like Anorthosis, APOEL, AEL Limassol, AEK Larnaca, Omonia, etc, having decent runs in Europe. I'm sure they will all keep growing, because they all have oil money behind them, and this us just going to make it even harder for scottish clubs.

It's not like the top Scottish clubs don't have money either tho... obviously rangers + Celtic get paid incredible, but hearts and aberdeen players get good money too.
I'm really not sure why rangers lost in the first round of qualifications lol,but I think there are 4 Scottish teams that should/could be doing well in CL. Those 4 are Celtic, Aberdeen, hearts, and rangers.

I don't agree with you about them going down in the rankings, if anything I can only see it going up.
And I'm not sure if I'd rate Romania or Denmark higher..

In EL***
Only Celtic should be doing good/decent in CL

ffs how ridiculous is it that these leagues are even mentioned

Hearts and Aberdeen have been consistently shit in Europe over the years, being kicked out of the EL qualifiers by random teams. As we can see from their last season and today's european performance, Rangers still has a long way to go until they become an alternative to Celtic again. Celtic is the only club that can achieve some minimally decent results in Europe, and even then they are far from great.



Yeah, it's a joke, but the clubs in these leagues now have rich owners from the oil/gas/construction industry that are injecting money into football as their countries are developing. Obviously they aren't China or Qatar, but it's crazy how some of their random clubs can offer enough money to pull players from traditionally far stronger leagues. Obviously they will never compete with the top leagues because they don't have the market or the strcuture for it, but they certainly do have the potential to keep growing as long as there are millionaires willing to invest in football.

We are standing to lose Guardado to Real Betis, the only problem I have with this is that these scumbags took 10 years to pay their last transfer and didn't even pay that fee 100%. Guardado has been past it for the last two seasons, injured too much and making quite a few critical mistakes that have cost us dearly. If he was managed a little more properly (given rest against little teams) he would have been of real value still though.

When is Lacazette going to be official Arsenal player?

I read this morning that the offer of 59m has been accepted. IDK this to be true or false, but we will read about it soon enough if it's true

I do know for young players the Scottish league is a much better place than some of the countries you mentioned. Since a lot of the players end up going to England premier or championship.
I'd love to see rangers be on par with a good Celtic again. One thing that is amazing is the fans tho.... literally a sellout if they were to play the worst team in the world

I do know for young players the Scottish league is a much better place than some of the countries you mentioned. Since a lot of the players end up going to England premier or championship.
I'd love to see rangers be on par with a good Celtic again. One thing that is amazing is the fans tho.... literally a sellout if they were to play the worst team in the world